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Some BORZOI Novels 
Fall, 1924. 

THE TATTOOED COUNTESS 

CARL VAN VECHTEN 

THE FIRE IN THE FLINT 
WALTER F. WHITE 

THE LORD OF THE SEA 
M. P. SHIEL 

BALI SAN D 

JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER 

THE PEASANTS 

LAD1SLAS ST. REYMONT 

TREASURE TRAIL 
ROLAND PERTWEB 

WINGS 

ETHEL M. KELLEY 

A LOVELY DAY 
HENRY CEARD 

THE TIDE 
MILDRED CRAM 

ORDEAL 

DALE COLLINS 

RED DAWN 
PIO BAROJA 


SOUND AND FURY 


JAMES HENLE 



NEW YORK 

ALFRED : A * KNOPF 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. * 
PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, I924 • SET UP AND 
PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BING¬ 
HAMTON, N. Y. * PAPER FURNISHED BY W. F. 
ETHERINGTON & CO., NEW YORK. * BOUND BY THE 


H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK 




MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


SEP 15 1324 ' 

©C1A801833 ■ 


To 

C. G. T. 














manna mildust ond mon-thwaerust, 
leodum lithost ond lof-geornost. 








I 


H E had hit a girl! Not really hit her, of course, 
but slapped her with his open hand, and she, big 
ugly thing, had sprawled on the ground and then 
proceeded to bawl as though he had tried to kill her. 
She was the first girl he had ever struck, and for the 
moment he regarded her critically, dispassionately. 
What a fat fool she was, always bothering him with 
her silly questions! 

As a small boy he had often teased girls and some¬ 
times pulled their pigtails. He had hurt them. But 
they seemed to like it. This was different. He was 
not ashamed of himself, because he had not meant to 
do it. He had just lost his temper. But it was the 
devil to pay. No spending-money for a month, he re¬ 
flected—perhaps longer. Of course, he might win at 
craps. If he didn't—well, he had had to do without 
spending-money before. 

He picked up the leg of the tabourette which she 
had made him spoil by jogging his elbow when he was 
trying to follow a ticklish curve—her dumb idea of 
fun. She wouldn't risk that again very soon. The 
tabourette was to be a present to his mother. It did 
not interest him now. He kicked aside some bits of 
wood and strode out of the shed. Plenty of time until 
supper. Then the governor—“To think that a son of 
9 


SOUND AND FURY 

mine-!” Why shouldn’t a son of his? The gover¬ 

nor had been a hell-raiser himself when he was fourteen, 
according to everything that a person could find out. 
Hitting a girl was different, though. But why shouldn’t 
a fellow slap one if she played such stupid tricks? 

Goody walked angrily down the street. Someone 
might try to tease him about hitting a girl. They’d 
better not, that’s all. What business was it of theirs? 
He couldn’t help what he did when he got angry. 

An acquaintance was approaching. He didn’t like 
the boy, but he stopped him. There was something 
menacing in his manner and the other boy seemed to 
shy away from him, though his voice was soft and 
caressing. 

“You know, Walt, 1 just slapped a girl, that crazy 
Roberts fool—the fat one. I slapped her pretty hard, 
I guess. She fell down and started to bawl like a 
baby.” 

“Did she?” asked the other with as little interest as 
he could command. 

“Fact. Bawled like a baby.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“Well?” 

“Well, what?” 

“Have you got anything to say about it?” His 
voice was still low. 

“Me? No.” 

“Because, if you have, I sorter wish you’d tell me. 
Yes, sir, I’d like to know.” 

“It’s none of my business.” 

“There you are. It’s none of his business. He says 

10 


SOUND AND FURY 
so himself. You know, Walt, I could kill anyone that 
crossed me right now. Just you remember, though, 
that it’s none of your business and you’ll be all right. 
And if you meet anyone who thinks it’s any of his 
business, suppose you send him to me. I’d consider 
that a favour, Walt, and after I’d killed the son of a 
bitch I’d let you bury him. Word of honour, I would. 
Don’t bother me now.” 

He walked on. There was hope of finding someone 
with more spunk than the craven Walt. Suddenly it 
occurred to him to turn east toward Pigtown. He could 
get a glass of beer at the Dutchman’s and he was pretty 
sure to find someone there. They were older boys and 
he had not seen any of them since he had come back 
from the seashore. He would tell his troubles to them 
and laugh it off. 

In Pigtown it was safe to smoke, because no one 
there knew his parents. He fished the battered pack 
of Piedmonts out of his pocket and lit one. As he did 
so, a stone whizzed by his head. He turned and saw 
a crowd of boys, most of them smaller than he, but one 
or two his size, standing in an alley. There was an 
outburst of taunts and jeers from the ragged gang, 
which resented alien intrusion in its quarter. 

The anger that had almost died in him flamed up 
again. This was something like it! He dashed full 
speed at the gang. The others were as astonished as 
though a trolley had turned down the alley. The 
smaller boys took to flight; the larger ones made a show 
of standing their ground but, finding themselves de¬ 
serted, followed suit. Too late. In an instant he was 
11 


SOUND AND FURY 

among them. He struck one a full swing upon the 
ear; the blow whirled the boy around so that he tripped 
and fell heavily. He leaped upon the back of another 
and bore him to the ground. It proved to be a Negro. 
He wasted no blows upon the woolly head, but ground 
the face into the cobbles. The Negro, fully fifteen 
years old, sobbed like a baby. Goody rose and with all 
his might kicked him in the ribs. The smaller boys 
were beyond pursuit now and not worth bothering 
about, anyway. 

“Hello, kid, you look angry/' an older fellow greeted 
him as he entered the Dutchman’s. 

“Darn right I am, Sid. Had to chase a gang of 
Micks on my way here and then earlier this afternoon— 
say, I'll tell you all about it.” 

“Have a drink first.” 

“Don’t mind if I do. Better make it beer, because 
1 got to go home soon.” 

“Tell me your troubles, kid.” 

“You know that crazy Roberts girl—the fat one? 
I smacked her to-day so hard I thought I’d killed her. 
I was making a tabourette-” 

“A what?” 

“Oh, a little table, and just as I was carving one of 
the legs she jogged my elbow and I cut into the leg 
and spoiled it—a day’s work. If she’d been a man I 
would have killed her and no mistake.” 

“1 bet you would. That’s why I like you, kid. You 
can take care of yourself.” 

“Take care of myself, hell! I don’t have to take care 

12 


SOUND AND FURY 
of myself. No fellow my size will fight me and damn 
few that are bigger. That’s not what’s bothering me. 
She’ll tell her mother and she’ll tell my mother and 
she’ll tell the governor and then there’ll be the devil 
to pay.” 

“What of it?” 

“Oh, the governor is always rowing with me anyway, 
and school begins to-morrow. I’ll have trouble enough 
then without this fool business.” 

“Some of the fellows at school will try to kid you 
about hitting a girl.” 

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think they will.” 
And then he told of his meeting with Walt. 

“So he wouldn’t fight you, the little skunk!” com¬ 
mented the older boy. “I wish you'd have made him.” 

“Why?” 

“I don’t like him. Makes me sick. He’s sweet on 
my sister.” 

“I don’t like him either, the big stiff.” 

“Tell you what, Goody, I wish you'd lick him. 
It’d be a favour to me.” 

“How can I lick him when he won’t fight?” 

“Make him fight. Go up to him when there’re some 
girls around. He can’t get out of it then.” 

“Aw, hell, what's the use? I was mad this after¬ 
noon.” 

“Say, kid, if you lick him for me I’ll square any¬ 
thing your old man does.” 

The boy looked at him uncomprehendingly, and the 
older went on: 

13 


SOUND AND FURY 

“Suppose he cuts off your allowance for a month? 
I’ll make it up to you. Or two months. Or a year. 
I’ll see you through.” 

He regarded his companion with disgust. 

“Say, what d’you think I am, a paid bruiser? I tell 
you I was mad this afternoon. Fm not mad now—at 
him.” 

“Aw, don’t be a sissy. Are you scared he can lick 
you like Johnny Talbot?” 

“Johnny Talbot didn’t lick me, you big fool! I beat 
him till he couldn’t put up his hands. But I’m not 
going to whip Walt or anybody else just to please you.” 

“Suit yourself, kid, suit yourself.” But Sid was obvi¬ 
ously annoyed and soon swung out of the Dutchman’s. 
He had, however, touched upon the one sore spot in 
Goody Guthrie’s martial career—his combat with the 
Talbot boy. 

For Goody was a fighter only through sheer and 
overwhelming desire and courage. He was possessed, 
perhaps, of somewhat more than the average strength, 
but most of his victories, like that over the gang of 
roughs in Pigtown, had been gained through impet¬ 
uosity and daring. He hit hard, and hit quickly, and 
usually he hit first. A few whirlwind victories and his 
reputation was established. Most of the boys his own 
size were afraid of him. A boy who put gangs to 
rout single-handed—what chance had an ordinary 
fellow alone against him? 

Half unconsciously Goody dramatized this reputa¬ 
tion. Whenever he could do so gracefully, he avoided 
tests of strength with his companions. He knew that 

14 


SOUND AND FURY 
he won his fights through courage and aggressiveness, 
and stupid feats like tossing heavy stones—where 
neither courage nor aggressiveness counted—were not 
for him. Gradually there grew up about him the great 
Guthrie legend—Goody Guthrie, the boy who was 
afraid of nothing, the boy whom no one his own size 
could whip, the boy who drove dozens before him, the 
boy who had once struck a teacher (a substitute), the 
boy petted and pampered by older fellows and adored 
by the rising generation who fought for the honour of 
doing his errands. 

Imagine, then, Goody's astonishment and anger when 
Johnny Talbot, a boy his own size, had not quailed 
before him in a dispute at one-and-over, had even 
evinced a willingness to fight him on equal terms. 
Astonishment? Sheer bewilderment, which was re¬ 
doubled when the Talbot lad stood stoutly to his job, 
receiving Goody’s onrush calmly and shooting straight 
rights and lefts at his face. Recoiling, more in amaze¬ 
ment than from the force of the blows, he had rushed 
once more upon his presumptuous opponent, seeking 
through sheer strength and ferocity to beat him to the 
ground. In vain. The other had been as strong as 
he. For the better part of half an hour the two had 
fought in the vacant lot, till Goody, both eyes almost 
closed, but still boiling and surging with anger, had 
exacted from the other the admission that he had had 
enough. 

A good stiff fight like that did a fellow good, Goody 
had commented, and as soon as his vision cleared he 
had partially repaired his damaged prestige by whip- 
15 


SOUND AND FURY 

ping single-handed the two Parker boys, one nearly as 
tall as he and the other only two inches shorter. The 
blot in the 'scutcheon still remained, however. A boy, 
a mere mortal boy, an ordinary, common-looking hu¬ 
man being, had stood off the demigod for half an hour, 
had slugged with him toe to toe, and blacked both the 
demigod’s eyes. A strange world in which such things 
could happen. 

It seemed a remarkably short walk home. Goody 
was in no hurry, for he knew the interview that awaited 
him. It came up to all expectations. Mr. Guthrie 
was too much like his son; he could endure anything 
except to see his own faults, of which he was well aware, 
repeated in Goody. To correct these he could conceive 
of but one method—discipline. Since his business did 
not require all his time nor much of his thought, he 
devoted these in some measure to Goody, with results 
both good and bad. For short periods relations be¬ 
tween father and son would be harmonious in the ex¬ 
treme, but one misstep by Goody and the entire 
structure would collapse. 

The lecture had now passed the "to think that a son 
of mine" stage and Mr. Guthrie had worked himself 
up to his peroration: 

"In the first place, you will do without spending- 
money for a month. I consider that light enough 
punishment for your disgraceful, cowardly act. In the 
second place, if your marks at the end of the first month 
of school are not completely satisfactory—if you do 
not pass in every subject—the punishment will be 

16 




SOUND AND FURY 
continued and you will receive no spending-money un¬ 
til your marks come up to the required grade. And 
whenever your marks fall below that grade, the pun¬ 
ishment will begin again.” 

Goody gasped. “But, Pop-” he protested. 

“Well?” 

“What's school got to do with it? I guess you ought 
to punish me for losing my temper and hitting a girl, 
but what's school got to do with it?” 

“What do you mean? I’ll punish you any way I 
please.” 

“All right, punish me if you want to, but why lug 
in school?” 

“I'm not lugging in school. You ought to get 
passing-marks anyway. Now don't let me hear any 
more from you.” 

It was the part of wisdom to say no more. But in 
Goody burned a deep resentment at the other's unfair¬ 
ness. He had not found the words to express it, but 
he felt that his father had seized upon his outburst of 
temper in order to compel him to keep up with the^ 
class in school; because he had struck a girl, a club 
was to be held over his head for the coming school year. 
The two things had nothing to do with each other and 
the governor was nasty to mix them. However, he 
didn't always keep his threats, which was one consola¬ 
tion. The less Goody said about them now, the less 
likely he was to remember them. 

After supper Goody mumbled an excuse and walked 
out of the house to escape the feeling of tension there. 
To-night was his last evening of freedom, for he would 
17 



SOUND AND FURY 

be expected to stay in his room on weekday nights 
hereafter and devote himself to lessons. The thought 
was anything but pleasant. He was in no mood to 
call on a girl and he strolled disconsolately away from 
home, wondering if he could pass in all his subjects 
and if it were worth trying. 

Down the street little T. P. Harper was sitting on 
the steps which led to his house. He saw Goody com¬ 
ing and ran to meet him. “Can I walk with you, 
Goody ?” he asked. 

“Sure,” the other replied. “Come ahead. But I 
don’t know where I’m going.” 

“What’s the matter?” 

“Now look here, T. P., I said you could come along, 
but I didn’t say you could ask questions. Shut up.” 

“All right.” 

Goody lifted T. P. by the back of his collar, swung 
him about, none too gently, to the other side, and de¬ 
posited him with a jar. T. P., well trained, did not 
squirm or protest. 

“Shut up,” Goody remarked sententiously, “means 
shut up.” 

The two walked in silence for a few moments. Then 
Goody began suddenly: “What’s that I hear about 
you hanging out with Piggy and his gang in the 
alley?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“None of your lip. Did you know who Piggy used 
to be?” 

“No.” 

“Well, sir, Piggy used to be one of the best fighters 

18 


SOUND AND FURY 
in this town. There weren’t many kids could stand 
up to him.” 

The boy’s eyes opened wide with astonishment. 
“Piggy a fighter? Could he ever fight? Honest, 
Goody, you’re not fooling me?” 

“Honest. He was a darn good fighter. He can’t 
whip a baby now.” 

“Gee, he can’t whip anybody. I could lick him.” 

“Sure you could. Well, do you want to get like 
Piggy?” 

“No.” 

“Then don’t hang out with him any more. You tell 
Piggy for me that if he lets you stick around him I’ll 
whip him within an inch of his life. And I’m going 
to tell you this: you cut all that stuff out. You ought 
to know better. Wait until you’re old enough for the 
real thing.” 

There was another short stretch of silence. Then 
T. P. asked: “Did you ever do it, Goody?” 

“What?” 

“The real thing.” 

“None of your business.” 

M Tell me, Goody.” 

“Shut up!” 

“Please, Goody.” 

“No. But it’s none of your business. Now shut 
up.” 

“Just one thing more, Goody.” 

“Well, what is it?” 

“What are you going to be when you grow up?” 

Goody’s chest swelled. “Men tell me,” he declared 

19 


SOUND AND FURY 

proudly, “that I am either going to be hanged or be 
President/' 

Goody was on time for school the next morning. 
The hold of our educational system upon him, how¬ 
ever, had reached the vanishing point. He had so 
completely lost interest in it that he no longer desired 
even to outrage it; spitballs and the other parapher¬ 
nalia of mischievous youth had lost their lure for him. 
The only feeling he had for the entire institution of 
learning, aside from the manual-training periods and 
athletics, was one of complete loathing. Ordinarily 
punishment meant little to him, but so deep was his 
disgust with school that he behaved with a semblance 
of propriety rather than have school hours prolonged 
by being kept in. 

Goody would not necessarily have told himself this. 
He thought that he hated school merely as every other 
decent fellow hated it. But in point of fact some of 
his classmates—who would never have admitted this— 
were finding something of what they sought in school 
and were making it part of themselves. Others had 
practically reached the end of their mental growth and 
were seeking nothing further. But Goody sought— 
and was rebuffed. 

It had begun in the earliest grades, where he had 
earned his ironic nickname, gladly accepted in place of 
the namby-pamby George. His vitality had been too 
great to endure uncomplainingly the tedium and re¬ 
pression of school hours; it had sought refuge in in¬ 
numerable pranks with the result that Goody and the 

20 


SOUND AND FURY 
school authorities had become thoroughly antagonistic, 
and this antagonism remained, though teachers had 
changed and Goody’s love of mischief had almost ex¬ 
hausted itself. 

But the trouble between Goody and the school went 
even deeper than this. What school attempted to teach 
him he now resented as being trivial, useless, inade¬ 
quate. The only terms on which one could make peace 
with Knowledge, as represented in school, was by com¬ 
plete self-surrender and the obliteration of one’s own 
personality. Algebra seemed as foolish to him as child¬ 
ish riddles. There was something intensely sissified 
about grammar. In history his first question had 
been: "Why weren't the Indians right to try to kill 
the white men who came to take their country away 
from them ?” 

That question had never been answered with the 
completeness and detail that Goody desired. Later he 
had formulated another but had not put it, because he 
had no confidence in his own ability to explain it: 
"If the Indians and the white men were both right, 
perhaps there are two kinds of right to everything.’’ 
Now he was groping for and wrestling with a third 
problem: "Perhaps there isn’t any right at all and a 
thing seems right to us because we want to do it.” 
That fitted in very well with other thoughts that were 
in Goody's head. 

There was another side to Goody and one that more 
intelligent, less harassed instructors would have seized 
upon instantly as an easy means of catching his interest 
and extending his enthusiasm to other subjects. Goody 

2 !i 


SOUND AND FURY 

led the class in manual training. He had an eye for 
form, coupled with an easy dexterity with saw and 
plane and chisel. Usually he completed the task for 
the term within the first two months and was free to 
devote the rest of his time to his individual fancies. 
Also, he had his workshop in a shed at home, and there 
he spent many soul-satisfying hours, silent, absorbed, 
happy. 

Goody would have possessed one other surprise for 
himself, could he have seen himself clearly and with¬ 
out the protective colouring which youth adopts against 
ridicule. He had a keen feeling for beauty in its varied 
forms—for the colours in the sunset, for the curve in a 
graceful Sheraton chair, for the fine, severe silhouette 
of a girl's face. He had a respect for his own body 
that was partly a feeling for its beauty; he knew that 
he was not handsome—his mouth was too large, his 
nose too prominent—but his proudest moment had 
come, at the yearly physical examination which the 
boys at his school received. When Goody stood before 
him the gym teacher had called in some members of 
the football squad, who happened to be lounging in an 
adjoining room, to admire the sturdy, well-knit figure. 

Goody would have “messed around" with paints ex¬ 
cept for the feeling that it was effeminate. As 
compensation, he spent a disproportionate amount of 
time staining the products of his workshop. 

School, therefore, meant nothing to Goody, and 
neither the principal nor the teachers evoked any 
emotion in him whatsoever. He had never had a 
teacher he liked, so he felt no personal resentment 

22 


SOUND AND FURY 
toward his present instructors—there were no better 
patterns by which he might measure them. Teachers 
were to him, as they were to Tom Brown, merely nat¬ 
ural enemies. It was the nature of teachers to be strict 
and dull; no one could blame them for that. 

To only one human being in the school, aside from 
his friends among the pupils, did Goody feel any af¬ 
fection. That was Mose Jackson, the Negro janitor, 
and the affection he felt for Mose was merely the grati¬ 
tude evoked by the other s self-evident inferiority. On 
Sundays Mose was a parson; he knew his Bible almost 
by heart and could give book, chapter, and verse for 
almost any line chosen by the boys at random. Mose 
had a third occupation—as vender to the older boys 
of a home-made preparation warranted to cure ven¬ 
ereal diseases. With all this he was “a little queer,” but 
it never occurred to anyone that his influence upon the 
pupils in that private school—children were sent there 
to be “protected”—could be unhealthful. Mose’s man¬ 
ner toward Goody was deferential in the extreme, and 
the boy treated him as a knight might a faithful albeit 
stupid squire. 

At home Goody was convinced that he loved his 
mother and hated his father, but, as a matter of fact, 
he modelled himself almost exclusively upon his fa¬ 
ther’s lines, taking from him, in fact, that air of ex¬ 
treme devotion which the other assumed to his wife. 
This, in turn, was only Mr. Guthrie’s manner of admit¬ 
ting that in marrying his wife he had acted upon an 
impulse—and a mistaken one. The code in which he 
23 


SOUND AND FURY 

believed forbade him to acknowledge this even to him¬ 
self, and he had taken refuge in treating his wife with 
what everyone called touching tenderness, while the 
deep resentment he actually felt for her was translated 
into bitter hatred of her family, no member of which 
was permitted to enter his home. 

Mr. Guthrie's apparent devotion toward his wife was 
reinforced in the boy by all the sentimental and chival- 
ric ideas with which the early training of the young is 
permeated. The result was that, instead of seeing his 
mother as a rather vapid, emotionally poor, and socially 
ambitious woman, Goody’s picture of her was confused 
with his mental images of Joan of Arc, Charlotte Cor- 
day, and Maude Adams. On the other hand, because 
the burden of disciplining him fell exclusively upon 
his father, Goody beheld nothing in him save the ty¬ 
rant, instead of recognizing that along with the other’s 
hasty temper and stubbornness went high qualities of 
courage, candour, and honesty. 

It was in his conduct toward his friends that Goody 
most nearly approached conventional standards. Pos¬ 
sessions in themselves meant little to him; his bicycle, 
roller skates, tennis racket belonged as much to his 
friends as to him. More than once he had returned 
home and marked that his bicycle was missing, marked 
it without surprise or any other emotion, knowing that 
in a day or two at most it would again be in its place. 
There was no length to which Goody would not go for 
his friends; there was no annoyance to which he would 
not subject himself, nor any danger, either from parents 
or teachers. The occasion, almost historic, when he 

24 


SOUND AND FURY 
had struck a substitute teacher was the direct result of 
his loyalty. The teacher had gone out of the room. 
Goody, bored as usual in school, had amused himself 
by drawing a caricature of the boy at his left, while 
Jack Bannon had placed a tack on the teachers seat. 
The trick, so threadbare and obvious that the boy him¬ 
self had had little confidence in the outcome, had suc¬ 
ceeded 

Goody had looked up and laughed, as had everyone 
in the class, but it happened that his eye and the in¬ 
structor's met. He was certain Goody had had a share 
in the prank. Even the substitute was acquainted with 
Goody's reputation. “Were you responsible?" he de¬ 
manded angrily. “No, Sir," returned Goody. “Do 
you know who did it?" “Yes." 'Tell me his name!" 
The teacher was beside himself with rage. Goody for 
a moment did not answer. The other went on: “You 
won't tell me the name because you did it yourself." 

This was not one of the times when Goody lost his 
temper. No flaming surge swept over him. Sometimes 
when he was angry he heard his words, commanding, 
staccato, as though they issued from another person. 
Now he knew precisely what he was doing. He was 
deathly cold and his words came thin and pointed like 
icicles. 

“I did not answer your question," he said, “because 
it was one no gentleman would ask." 

The instructor rushed at the boy. Goody met him 
with a blow that staggered him. In a moment, how¬ 
ever, the superior weight and strength of the other told, 
and Goody was flung headlong through the door. It 
25 


SOUND AND FURY 

was the influence of his father which prevented him 
from being ejected with little more ceremony from 
school. 

On a somewhat different plane from his other friend¬ 
ships was the bond between him and Tom Penny. It 
was a much older friendship than any of the others and, 
unlike the rest, it was not based on a similarity of tastes 
and dispositions. The other boy was unlike him in al¬ 
most every respect, and the friendship between the 
two was founded on an almost animal affection that 
had developed when the two had, puppylike, rolled 
about on the grass together as babies and later as 
boys, founded, too, on the many recollections they had 
in common and, finally, on their very differences, each 
finding a certain kind of support and supplement in 
the other. 

Penny, a few months older than Goody, lacked the 
latter’s enormous vitality; he was, therefore, less ag¬ 
gressive, less self-assertive, inclined to be shy, rather 
easily embarrassed. He was not adept with his hands; 
he played most games but played them poorly. As 
compensation, he had developed a liking for books; 
he usually led his classes and his virtues had many 
times been employed by Goody’s parents in their ef¬ 
forts to demonstrate to the latter the lamentable fail¬ 
ure he was making and would necessarily make of 
himself. 

Strangely enough, this in no way affected the friend¬ 
ship. Almost of the same age and thrown together 
constantly as children, they had no choice but to make 

26 


SOUND AND FURY 
of themselves bitterest enemies or closest friends. 
They chose the latter. Their confidence in each other 
was unbounded and neither felt the least envy for the 
attainments of the other. Tom was not pugnacious by 
nature, but he had known Goody long before the Goody 
Guthrie legend had developed. Taller and somewhat 
thinner than his chum, he had held his own with him 
in many a fair fight, but those encounters belonged 
to the prehistoric era; since a memorable occasion on 
Goody’s eighth birthday they had never fought. 

However, in all this time they had hardly ever agreed 
upon anything at all. Goody, endowed with a vigorous 
physical organism and impatient of any restraint, had 
a point of view that was strongly individualistic, while 
the other boy was rather socially-minded. For instance, 
Penny was a firm believer in democracy, while Goody 
had come to the conclusion that most men were fools 
and, though he did not think of himself as anti-demo¬ 
cratic, this conviction coloured his arguments in all 
their long disputes. Three years ago Goody had 
shocked Tom by calmly informing the other that he 
was an atheist; he had heard scraps of a conversation 
between his father and Tom’s, and the elder Guthrie’s 
contemptuous references to religion had completely won 
him. For once Goody had thrilled to his father’s words; 
he had felt in the other something of his own impatience 
at restraint and defiance of authority. 

Tom’s family had moved to New York about a year 
previously, but the friendship between the two had been 
kept up through letters and on their recent vacation 
in the East the Guthries had spent three days in New 
27 


SOUND AND FURY 

York and Goody had been with his friend all that 
time. Now he was writing to Tom, when he should 
have been solving examples in algebra. But, as Goody 
told himself, if you could do one of them you could do 
them all, so he had proceeded to get an answer for 
one, making a mistake, incidentally, in division on the 
final step. 

“Dear Old Stickinthemud/' he was writing, “I am 
certainly in a hell of a mess and my future looks about 
as bright as the inside of Mammoth Cave. Too bad, 
too bad/ I can hear you saying, you pious old fraud, 
'but the way of the transgressor is hard/ 

“Well, it's hard all right, but this time even you 
would have to admit I’m in tough luck. 1 lost my tem¬ 
per yesterday and slapped that fat Roberts girl. Hon¬ 
est, I don't see how her own family can stand her. So 
the governor has decided to cut off my allowance for 
a month and not give it back to me unless I pass in 
every subject at school, and whenever I fall behind in 
one he’ll cut it off again. Sweet of the old man, isn't 
it? I'm sorry I lost my temper—this is on the level— 
but the old man is certainly rubbing it in. 

“I don't know how I’ll get by. God knows when 
my allowance will begin again. I’ll have to manage 
to win the money at craps—of course this will shock 
you, but you ought to be used to me by now. Con 
comes back on Thursday, and 1 always take her to all 
our football games, but that's only one of the things 
I need money for. It would be a swell joke, wouldn't 
it, to go to the governor and kick about him cutting 

28 


SOUND AND FURY 
off my allowance because I need the money for ciga¬ 
rettes. Perhaps when 1 get tired of shocking you I'll 
try shocking the governor, though I don’t expect it will 
be quite so funny. 

“Well, Rev. Sir, write me a letter and tell me all 
about that fine translation you made in the Latin class 
and what the preacher’s text was last Sunday.” 

There was one thing that Goody’s attachment for 
Con had in common with his friendship for Tom. Con 
was as easily shocked as Tom, though not by quite the 
same things. With her, Goody felt thoroughly wicked, 
and he was at an age when it gives one a thrill to feel 
irretrievably sinful and abandoned. Con was a grave 
little thing with a face that could have been taken 
from a Greek coin. She talked simply and unaffectedly 
of her duties—her duty to her parents, to her school, 
her classmates, and, even as early as this, to society. 
Con already belonged to half a dozen organizations for 
the improvement of this and the amelioration of that; 
the dues to these societies were paid by her parents, 
but she herself put aside a quarter every week and 
gave this money in June to a fresh-air fund for poor 
children. She was encouraged in this by both her par¬ 
ents, but particularly by her mother, whose name ap¬ 
peared as patroness or subscriber in connection with 
most of the city's philanthropic enterprises that were 
properly sponsored socially. Nor was this lady's in¬ 
terest merely that of a dilettante—she occasionally did 
case work and often she came in first-hand contact with 
29 


SOUND AND FURY 

the objects of her charity. It was natural, therefore, 
that Constance with her rather serious bent should 
follow her mothers inclinations. 

When Goody was with Con he knew that she was 
right and that he was wrong. He had his code—not 
yet formulated in words but despite this the code by 
which he lived—that there was no right, that a man 
did a thing because he wanted to do it and then found 
reasons to explain why it was right; he had this code, 
but he did not believe in it when he was with Con. 
She seemed the finest person he had ever known, in¬ 
comparably finer than Tom or anyone else. He did 
not laugh at her religious inclinations as he did at 
Tom’s; he went with her to Episcopal services and the 
beauty of the church and of the music appealed to an 
unsatisfied something within him. And Con, unlike 
Tom, showed no signs of ever nagging at him about his 
faults. Hers was the way of righteousness; it was 
there, broad and plain, for him to follow. Well, for 
the present he did not choose to follow it, because his 
own way was both pleasant and convenient, but in 
his heart he knew that the time would come when he 
would walk not in his own way but in Con’s because 
it was the right one. 

And he and Con had a great deal in common, how¬ 
ever much their philosophies differed. They were both 
fond of the open country and would often take long 
walks together or ride horseback on Saturdays. There 
was something that always vividly reminded him of 
the outdoors in Con’s hazel eyes, something that sug¬ 
gested sunset and waving grain and autumn and the 

30 


SOUND AND FURY 
clean, fresh sweep of the wind. Goody felt something 
of this whenever he saw her. He often had what passed 
for wild flirtations with other girls and would kiss and 
fondle them when they permitted it, which was not 
infrequent, but he was foolish and sentimental about 
only one. The same process that had taken place in the 
case of his mother was under way with Con. Uncon¬ 
sciously he was selecting a girl who would grow into 
a woman very much like his mother. He did not realize 
how thin and limited was her emotional nature, how 
little richness of affection she possessed, how stilted and 
conventional were all her responses toward life, even 
toward that misery the presence of which she courted. 


31 


II 


B Y the time he was seventeen Goody Guthrie had 
become familiar with sporting life as far as 
Harpersburg could furnish it. For some years 
he had possessed an intimate acquaintance with a 
number of the less reputable saloons where there was 
no danger of encountering his father or anyone who 
knew his family. Now he had gained the supreme ex¬ 
perience of going "'down the line.” 

“The line” consisted of a row of miserable, dilapi¬ 
dated two-story wooden houses, the proprietresses of 
which were permitted to ply their trade under the some¬ 
what optimistic theory that in this manner vice would 
be restrained within narrow limits. 

The first experience was distinctly depressing. The 
merriment downstairs, the silly tunes of the mechanical 
piano, the thin beer, the jokes, the capers—this had 
been well enough, though he was sorry that the woman 
with whom he danced had a gold tooth in front. Later, 
after his experience, he was shaken with disgust. 
Could this be the real thing? Was this all? Did all 
the poetry and mystery of life, all the beauty and 
glamour, come down to this—a middle-aged woman 
(for Goody, youth ended at twenty-five) calling him 
“dearie” and urging him to come to see her again? He 
felt cheated, humiliated. He remembered the monks 

32 


SOUND AND FURY 
who refused to look at their own bodies—perhaps they 
had had in their youth experiences like these. He was 
dressing and the very cleanness of his limbs filled him 
with shame. 

For many months Goody carried with him a keen 
recollection of this degradation. He did not return 
to that house until the sharp edge of the memory had 
become dulled and until the physical drive within him 
became too insistent to be disobeyed. He believed, 
and all his friends believed, that indulgences of this 
kind were necessary for health; if the question of sex 
had been mentioned in his school, it would have resulted 
in most of the boys being withdrawn by their parents. 

Besides—and this was the conviction held by all in 
Goody’s circle—conduct of this kind permitted “a 
man” to behave with proper chivalry toward the good 
girls of his acquaintance. Certainly these experiences 
gave Goody a new and thrilling sense of moral inferi¬ 
ority when he was in Con’s company. With her near 
at hand, walking with her through the bare russet 
fields of autumn, he could enjoy the sweet poignancy 
of realizing the gulf that separated them; he could look 
upon her as far removed from him through her shin¬ 
ing purity and virtue, through her faith and her 
good works. He might know in his heart that Schmel- 
zel, the saloon-keeper, was a better man than Rev. Dr. 
Twiddle, but he never applied this scale or this judg¬ 
ment to Con. Everything that pertained to her par¬ 
took of her goodness, from her painstakingly executed 
drawings to her philanthropic endeavours; she was as 
a woman should be, pure, patient, holy, aloof, while 
33 


SOUND AND FURY 

he was the erring, blundering, insatiable male, some 
day to confess his sins and be forgiven. 

Another influence besides that of Con was at work 
on him now to mould him into the way of conform¬ 
ity. With the passing of his boyhood had come a 
recognition of social distinctions. The Payminsters 
were poor but they had family. The Hopkinses had 
money but no family. The Warrens had both money 
and family. He became aware that the boys and girls 
he knew were dividing, rather roughly, into two “sets/' 
One, some day, would be society. The other could 
never be. 

Confronted by the choice, Goody had naturally con¬ 
cluded that the better of the two belonged to him, and 
inevitably he was drawn more and more within the 
bounds of the elite. At first the change meant little to 
him; it was not until some years later that it was to 
assume important proportions. For the moment there 
was no necessity to alter his own habits, since drink¬ 
ing and associations with women of the town were 
regarded as distinguishing marks of Harpersburg’s 
jeunesse doree. 

Goody’s best friend in Harpersburg now was Lee 
Dangerfield, scion of one of the city’s oldest and most 
aristocratic families—a family that could trace its de¬ 
scent from one of the roistering courtiers of Charles I 
who had escaped the Roundheads and fled to Virginia 
—a family that, accordingly, looked down upon even the 
Warrens and the Randalls as mere vulgar parvenus. 
Two governors of the State had borne Lee Dangerfield’s 

34 


SOUND AND FURY 
name and, though the fortunes of the family were now 
at the ebb, it seemed more than a sporting wager that 
some day there would be a third in the person of that 
charming and intelligent lad. Lee was an orphan; he 
lived with two aunts (who worshipped him) in a 
brick house on lower First Street. This had once been 
the most exclusive section of the city, but the Danger- 
fields were the only old family to remain there. 

From Lee, Goody received much of what Tom in 
former years had given to him, intellectual stimula¬ 
tion, warm friendship, loyalty. Lee was no athlete; 
he was too delicate for football, but Goody overlooked 
this in view of the boy’s sheer likableness. He was a 
full year younger than Goody—in the past the latter’s 
close friends had all been older than he. 

Only one quality in Lee annoyed Goody, and that was 
the other’s craving for admiration, quite irrespective of 
its source. Deliberately and almost maliciously Lee at¬ 
tached to him the dullards and the eccentrics of the 
class—big, overgrown, shambling Hod Ellison, Pewee 
Drake, a grind of the rarest order and so near-sighted 
that he moved through the world as though in a blind 
maze, Lou Schnabel, huge, dull-witted slum product, 
who had spent three years in the same grade. These 
served as the butt of Lee’s ridicule and wit, which they 
seldom understood and never resented. They provided 
a foil for his brilliancy—fed the ever-hungry fires of 
his vanity. Quite aside from the use he made of Elli¬ 
son and Schnabel in performing errands for him and 
doing other menial service, Lee took a distinct delight 
in creating purposeless tasks for them, merely to dem- 
35 


SOUND AND FURY 

onstrate his authority. For Drake he reserved another 
employment; Lee’s time was too precious to be spent in 
study, so for a quarter of an hour every morning he 
would skim over the lessons for the day with the stoop¬ 
shouldered grind. Lee possessed the faculty, present 
in many boys of his type, of assimilating another’s 
knowledge very easily and then reproducing it, with 
elaborations and variations, as his own. In this way 
he usually received better marks than Drake himself 
and—so mysterious are the brain processes of those who 
control the curricula of our schools—retained quite as 
much of his courses as would ever be of any use to him. 

Goody could never understand why this veritable 
Prince Charming, who won such ready popularity 
among girls and boys wherever he went, should be 
happiest in the presence of the uncouth specimens in 
his retinue. He had a wit of which even teachers were 
afraid, yet he obtained most satisfaction when employ¬ 
ing it upon oafs through whose thick skin it could not 
cut—sometimes, to be sure, doing this for the amuse¬ 
ment of others, but often solely for his own pleasure. 
There must be a consuming, insatiable flame within 
him that for ever demanded this fuel. Could it be that 
the last of the Dangerfields, fallen on poverty and evil 
days, doubted himself and required this constant re¬ 
minder of his visible, undeniable superiority? Goody 
did not put his thoughts into words, but Lee’s fond¬ 
ness for his grotesque entourage was a continual source 
of annoyance; Goody realized that it proved some weak¬ 
ness in his friend and for this, if for no other reason, 

36 


SOUND AND FURY 

never elevated the other to the place that Tom Penny 
had in his affection. 

When Goody suggested to his classmate that on the 
coming Saturday they climb Harper’s Hill, Lee readily 
agreed but insisted, at first, upon taking with him his 
"three musketeers.” Goody resolutely opposed this, and 
finally Lee offered to compromise and take only one of 
them along, to which Goody with some reluctance con¬ 
sented. Lee chose Hod. "Hod is the best of the lot,” 
Goody commented. "If he had some backbone and a 
good deal more sense and didn’t have that stupid look 
on his face, I could get along with him all right.” 

The sky was overcast that Saturday morning when 
the three met. "I didn’t bring any lunch,” Lee said. 
"I knew if I said anything at home about this there’d 
be an awful fuss—they’re always so afraid of me being 
caught in the rain. I guess Hod has enough for me.” 

"Sure!” and the seventeen-year-old giant beamed. 

"You don’t think it’s going to rain?”—this question 
to Goody. 

"Not a chance of it—mornings have been like this 
the last couple of days and it’s cleared up later. You 
don’t mind a little rain anyway, do you?” 

"Guess not, but I’m not supposed to be out in it.” 

"Shucks! your aunts will make a baby of you, if you 
let them. If you harden yourself the way 1 do, noth¬ 
ing’ll hurt you.” 

But the weather did not clear. The boys were more 
than half-way up the hill when the first drops of rain 
fell. Lee stopped and looked troubled. "1 hate to 
37 


SOUND AND FURY 

spoil your day, Goody, but I’m afraid I ought to go 
back.” 

Goody turned to him in astonishment. “Go back 
for a drizzle! Say, what’s biting you?” 

“You know I ought to be careful.” 

“They’re kidding you and you let them. You ought 
to be growing up now. ’T any rate, we’re nearer the top 
than home; we’ll go up to that summer-house and wait 
for the rain to let up. You won’t get as wet that way 
as you would going home now.” 

As they climbed upward, the rain increased, and the 
boys were well drenched by the time they reached the 
shelter on the summit. There they ate their lunch— 
there was plenty for the three despite Lee’s failure to 
provide any—and waited for the rain to stop. Lee 
took out his knife and he and Hod played mumbly-peg 
on the soft pine floor; Goody watched them without 
interest. It was a dull afternoon. 

About four o’clock the boys decided—that is, Lee 
and Goody decided, for Hod never presumed to take 
any part in these discussions—to start for home, as 
it seemed useless to wait any longer. The rain made 
the path slippery, and there were a number of tumbles 
on the way back, so that when they finally reached the 
foot of the hill they were not only wet to the skin but 
also covered with mud. A sorry-looking trio, they said 
good-bye and separated. Lee had the farthest to go, 
as he lived in the old part of town. 

The next day he was not in school. Goody, some¬ 
what conscience stricken, called up his home and 
learned that he had a severe cold. Goody phoned daily 

38 


SOUND AND FURY 
thereafter, for the cold turned into pneumonia. On 
the fifth day Lee died. 

It was the first time that death had ever impinged 
on Goody’s life in any real way, and he had never sup¬ 
posed that its touch could be so sure, so quick, so de¬ 
cisive. One day alive—the next day dead—and the 
world continues on its way. It seemed queer. 

Goody’s class was studying Hamlet , and their 
instructor had made much of the fact that Hamlet’s 
failure was caused by an inherent weakness in the man 
himself, a weakness that made his failure inevitable. 
This, the teacher explained, was the essence of all true 
tragedy. Somehow or other, this seemed the decent 
way; it would have been much more satisfactory— 
if there could be anything at all satisfactory about 
death—had Lee succumbed to the real weakness 
that was inherent in him and that Goody knew so 
well, instead of merely to that chance weakness in his 
lungs that Goody had never suspected. 

There wasn't even any way to show that Hod’s 
presence that day had some bearing on the matter. If 
it had, there might have been some sense in it—a cruel 
kind of poetic justice. Goody hated to think about it, 
for he could not help but feel himself almost a murderer. 
. . . So it seemed whenever he passed one of Lee’s 
aunts. There would never be another Dangerfield to 
become Governor. 

That Christmas Tom visited Goody. It was the first 
time that the two had been together in several years. A 
curious change had taken place in Tom. While Goody, 
39 


SOUND AND FURY 

outwardly unaltered, had come within the reach of in¬ 
fluences which tended toward uniformity, Tom had en¬ 
countered disturbing elements; he had sipped of New 
York’s cosmopolitanism and had become infected with 
ideas that were unknown in Harpersburg, or at least in 
that part of Harpersburg with which Goody was 
acquainted. Tom, so he informed Goody, was a Social¬ 
ist and had discarded all religion. Goody laughed at 
that. He too had no religion, but he never thought 
about the subject any more, except sometimes when he 
pleased both his mother and Con by going to church. 

Yet Tom’s rebellion remained a thing of the mind; 
he was by nature a conformist and by rebelling he was 
merely conforming to the more vigorous personalities 
which he had encountered in the metropolis; he was 
ardently radical, yet his radicalism could never become 
an integral part of him. It was Goody who was by 
nature the rebel, abounding in physical vigour, ready 
to cut new paths for himself, impatient of all restraint. 

The first night the two boys talked until midnight. 
The second they sallied forth to get drunk, for with 
his radicalism Tom had gained a contempt for “bour¬ 
geois conventions.” The first saloon at which they 
stopped was Schmelzel’s. They each took two cock¬ 
tails, for Schmelzel would sell no more to boys. Then 
they proceeded further, laughing loudly at nothing in 
particular. It seemed the very essence of humour to 
them both that the telephone poles were so close to¬ 
gether; this ludicrous state of affairs sufficed for merri¬ 
ment until the next saloon was reached. 

Cocktails of various kinds followed rapidly and had 

40 


SOUND AND FURY 
an immediate effect. On one dark street the boys de¬ 
cided suddenly to wrestle and rolled about together in 
the snow and slush. Then Goody had the desire to 
hold a track meet and he and Tom crouched together 
at the mark, but both tumbled over when they tried to 
run. Supporting each other, singing, shouting, laugh¬ 
ing, they tramped for miles about the city streets. In 
each saloon Tom solemnly asked the bartender if he 
believed in the indivisibility of mind and matter. 
There were long disputes with no one in particular about 
the immortality of the soul. Tom, between outbursts 
of mirth, wept copiously at the plight of the Fiji 
Islanders who didn’t know how to play baseball. 

By now they were near their home again. The 
lights of Perkins’ drug store beamed ahead. 

“We can’t go home like this; let’s get something to 
brace us up,” muttered Goody. 

They staggered to the soda fountain, then paused, for 
they could not remember what they wanted. A boy of 
fourteen stared at them wide-eyed. 

“Aromatic,” began Goody and stopped in bewilder¬ 
ment. 

“Spirits of ammonia,” finished Tom. 

As the latter looked at the boy for the first time, he 
thought he recognized in him the lad’s older brother, 
who had been serving sodas there when Tom made his 
last visit to Harpersburg. The three years that had 
passed had brought the younger boy to his brother’s 
stature. 

“Why, Stanley—old friend Stanley,” said Tom, hold¬ 
ing out his hand, “shake!” 

41 


SOUND AND FURY 

The boy, frightened, retreated. Tom followed him 
behind the counter. The boy ducked under his arm 
and ran. Goody joined in the pursuit about the store. 
Finally the boy was cornered and Tom shook the 
others hand to his heart’s content. Still trembling, 
the lad furnished them with the ammonia. 

Somewhat cheered by this, the pair forgot about go¬ 
ing home and sallied forth again. The last saloon they 
visited was in Pigtown. It had two bars, one for Ne¬ 
groes and one for white men. It was filled with smoke, 
smoke that seemed to whirl and swirl and take queer, 
fantastic shapes, fitting frame for the face of the bar¬ 
tender who peered at them through it. Even here it 
was necessary, amid the oaths from the Negro bar, to 
discuss the indivisibility of mind and matter. 

In a quiet street the two boys saw a short, fat man 
waiting for a car. They offered to help him wait. The 
other did not see the joke, which moved the two to 
immoderate laughter. The man was infuriated. He 
uttered a German exclamation and rushed at them, 
swinging both arms wildly. He hit them both, but, 
drunk though they were, the feeble blows meant noth¬ 
ing to the boys. Goody stepped back, collected his 
strength, and hit the man on the chin. The other 
went down as though he had been struck dead. 

The boys were frightened. Goody bathed the man’s 
head in snow. He was able to get to his feet, but all 
the fight was out of him. They helped him to the 
curb and left him sitting there, waiting for the car. 

But the experience sobered the boys as well. They 
made their way home and with some difficulty suc- 

42 


SOUND AND FURY 
ceeded in getting the front door open. Luckily they 
did not disturb anyone. They crawled up the steps. 
A few feeble efforts to undress, and they threw them¬ 
selves on their beds. The room seemed to be revolving 
about them. For ages it spun—then sleep. Toward 
morning Goody awoke and undressed; then he aroused 
Tom and helped the other get out of his clothes. 

Many times during that visit Tom tried to convert 
Goody to Socialism. On the last night of his stay he 
made a final attempt. 

“I tell you it won’t work, and even if it worked I 
wouldn’t want it,” Goody replied to his arguments. 
“What’s the good of telling me about equality when I 
don’t want equality? You tell me the people don’t 
rule. I don’t want them to rule. They’re a bunch of 
fools, anyway. Half the laws our tomfool legislature 
passes are so crazy the courts have to rule them out. 

“Things are bad enough as they are without making 
them any worse. The people have more power than 
is good for them right now. When they have power 
what do they do? Look at the States that have pro¬ 
hibition. Look at the crazy labour laws.” 

Tom tried to interrupt, but Goody went on: 

“(I tell you we’re on top because we belong on top, 
and we’re going to stay on top as long as we can. I 
don’t believe that a guy digging a sewer is as good as 
I am, and neither do you. If he’s as good as I am, 
why is he digging a sewer? If he had any sense he’d 
find something better to do or blow his brains out. 

“There’s too much voting and too many laws, any- 

43 


SOUND AND FURY 

way. I do what I want to do and I don’t want people 
to tell me I can do a thing or I can’t. If we have to 
have laws I’d rather they were made by a few people 
like me than by Tom, Dick, and Harry I don’t know 
and don’t like.” 

"You don’t know what Socialism is-” 

"No, and I don’t want to. The trouble with you is 
you’re too darn good-hearted. If a kid cut his thumb 
you were afraid he was going to get blood-poisoning. 
I always figured out that there were plenty of kids and 
that one more or less wouldn’t matter much. Who 
gave you the job of looking out for the poor? Let 
them look out for themselves. A fat lot they bother 
about you, anyway.” 

Later on the talk turned to sex. 

"Does the old man know you go down the line?” 
asked Tom. 

"Yes.” 

"How do you know?” 

"I guess he remembers when he was my age. . . , 
Anyway, he found a thing in my pocket one day.” 

"Gee! What did he do?” 

"He asked what I meant by having such a thing. I 
said he ought to be angry if I didn’t have one, because 
it would mean that I wasn’t taking proper precautions 
in the care of my health.” 

"What did he say then?” 

"He got red and seemed like he was sorry he had said 
anything. Then he told me if I got sick to let him 
know right away and not go to any quack doctor.” 

"You certainly know how to handle your governor.” 

44 


SOUND AND FURY 

'Tm learning. When I was a kid we used to scrap 
a hell of a lot. I didn’t understand him and he didn’t 
understand me. Now I’m getting to know him better 
and he strikes me as the squarest man I’ve ever had 
anything to do with. He likes me better, too. He 
gets out of sorts with me every once in a while—I guess 
1 do fool things all right—but in the end the storm 
blows over. He’s got a pretty hot temper and so 
have I, but most times we manage to get along all 
hunky-dory.” 

Goody had difficulty in justifying Tom to Con. Af¬ 
ter all, Tom was not a thing one could justify—it was 
something one felt. In a way, Tom had become a 
habit, just as had Con. For Goody to have wavered 
in the case of either would have been to admit that he 
had been wrong. 

"But he’s so queer,” Con persisted. "I think he’s 
horrible.” 

"Horrible” was Con’s favourite adjective. Its 
meaning varied from merely somewhat disagreeable to 
disgusting. It was applied to anything or any person 
who met her disfavour, to a party to which the right 
sort of people had not been invited, to a rainy day, 
to a philanthropic committee organized without her 
mother’s assistance. 

"He’s not horrible at all. He’s different from us, 
and some of his ideas are pretty funny, but he’s the 
best sort of fellow on earth.” 

"Oh, there’re lots of horrible people who have good 
hearts.” 

45 


SOUND AND FURY 

“I don't mean he has a good heart. I don’t care 
whether he has or not—not in the usual way. You 
know what I mean. He’s the sort of fellow you can 
depend on. He wouldn’t do anything mean or under¬ 
handed. Anyway, I’ve known him so long he’s like a 
part of me. He’s my friend and he’s always going to 
be my friend, and my wife will have to be mighty nice 
to him.” 

“What’s that my business?” 

“It’s a lot your business because you’re going to be 
my wife.” 

“Oh, am I, smarty? Not the wife of a horrible thing 
like you.” 

“It’ll be me or a cripple. Do you think any man 
in Harpersburg would dare to marry you if he knew 
I wanted you?” 

“I don’t have to marry a man from Harpersburg. 
I’ll marry someone from New York or Boston—or 
Paris—someone who understands art—not a horrible 
bully like you.” 

“You protest too much. You know you’re going to 
marry me. I’ve always gotten what I want and I’m 
going to get you.” 

“Won’t you be awfully disappointed when you 
don’t?” 

Goody looked at her scornfully. “If I thought you 
meant that,” he asserted, “I’d marry you to-morrow 
just to prove it.” 

Goody was Con’s only admirer. Hers was not the 
warm nature that appeals to youth. Other boys found 
something of the schoolma’am in her, something didac- 

46 


SOUND AND FURY 
tic, preceptorial. With her they unconsciously lapsed 
into their best manners, which was a strain. Perhaps 
the effect upon Goody would have been the same if she 
had been a stranger to him, but he had been devoted to 
her too long to feel this influence. The fact that other 
boys found little in her to admire did not deter him; 
he regarded that as proof of their incapacity to ap¬ 
preciate her, not as an indication that anything was 
lacking in Con. 

With girls Con was extremely popular. Apparently 
she was not in the least envious of their social successes. 
They regarded her as high-minded and earnest without 
being a bore. Harpersburg had put its stamp of ap¬ 
proval upon Con's mother and Con's family, and this 
stamp was not to be ignored. Moreover, though Con 
was “different" it was not a difference that galled. All 
of them played to some degree at being interested in 
philanthropy. It was past the days of the Gibson girl 
craze, but many of them flirted with pen and ink or 
water colours or with music. They did not feel that 
there was anything in Con actually foreign to them— 
and yet their parents approved of her. It was a happy 
combination. 

No one, least of all Goody, sensed the fact that Con 
was serious and restrained because she could not be 
otherwise, that she could not give herself to those about 
her without revealing how little she had to give, that 
her interest in the poor, the maimed, the imbecilic, and 
the criminal was not the natural outpouring of a gen¬ 
erous spirit but the result of an ingrown and festering 
conception of duty, mere lip-service to a creed that she 
47 


SOUND AND FURY 

could not make her own—that her emotions were 
reserved for those who could not test their poverty or 
resent their acridity. 

Goody had given up carpentry. It was a boyish 
thing; it no longer satisfied him. What he really wanted 
to express, his keen delight in beauty, his feeling for line 
and colour, could not be told by chisel and hammer. He 
might have been a painter, but there was in him a deep, 
overpowering hostility to any such attempt. Possibly 
this was because Con painted and because he thought he 
admired her paintings though really he detested them; 
possibly it was because as a boy he had turned from 
painting as “sissified” when actually he had longed to 
study it. But he had an aversion even to the sight of 
paints and brushes; he never watched Con at work, 
though the two often discussed art. 

It was through Con’s influence that he began to read 
the books of the new men who were writing—partic¬ 
ularly in England. Her mother’s interest was literary 
as well as sociological, and the girl, in addition to dab¬ 
bling in art, attempted to follow her mother in both 
these tastes. Galsworthy, Wells, Arnold Bennett, and 
others were just attaining popularity in this country; 
even Bernard Shaw’s reputation was not yet formidable. 

Goody’s previous reading had been that of a boy 
rather than a man. The first volume of Hewlett that 
he read came as a revelation to him. Hewlett treated 
of the same times as Scott, but he did it in such a way 
as to make you feel that those days had really existed 
and that the men and women in them had been real 

48 


SOUND AND FURY 
men and women such as you might meet on Broad 
Street; the knights and ladies of Scott were like figures 
on tapestry—stiff, wooden, conventional. 

From Hewlett’s mediaeval tales he had gone to his 
Senhouse trilogy and from those works to Shaw, Gals¬ 
worthy, and the others. Goody smacked his lips over 
them. He found in Shaw—or read into him—some¬ 
thing of his own intense individualism. The air of 
moral irresponsibility, the defiance of all codes and 
precepts of life, struck fire in him; he was not certain 
that this was good doctrine to get into the hands of 
men of the commoner sort, but for him it was excellent. 
He read Wells for the stories; the radicalism of that 
author and the radical suggestions contained in Gals¬ 
worthy’s books did not touch him. In short, whatever 
could contribute to his own personal liberty of thought 
and conduct he accepted; what carried with it wider 
social implications he overlooked or disavowed. As 
might be expected, current American writers were 
treated by Con and her mother with slight respect— 
Booth Tarkington was “trashy,” O. Henry “clever,” 
and Dreiser “horrible.” 

In school, Latin now was added to Goody’s other 
tribulations. He saw no reason whatever for studying 
it, except that it was necessary in order to enter the 
Eastern college on which, because of the excellence of 
its football teams, he had early set his heart. To his 
knowledge no one ever spoke Latin, wrote in Latin, 
or even read Latin except as it was required in school 
and college courses. Added to this. Goody had no 
flair for languages; he even had difficulty with German 
49 


SOUND AND FURY 

and French. ‘'What are they trying to do with me?" 
he complained one day to Con. “The only things I am 
studying that I see any sense in are history and English 
literature. The governor kicks because 1 don’t get 
better marks in school. I sometimes wonder why they 
don’t fire me out, and I wouldn’t blame them a bit if 
they did, for 1 don’t fit there at all. Either that school 
is all wrong or I’m all wrong, and I’m willing to bet 1 
can guess the answer.” 

Outside the classroom, however, Goody was one of 
the “big men” at school. After some trying years at 
the private school, he had drifted back into the public 
school system and was now a junior at high school. He 
was president of his class and a member of the foot¬ 
ball team; he was also the best quarter-miler in school 
and played a fair game of baseball. There were better 
athletes in the school than he, but none whose word 
counted so much with the students, whose influence was 
sought so eagerly before an election. All this he ac¬ 
cepted as his due; there seemed nothing remarkable or 
surprising about it to him. 

One important change had come in his world. Un¬ 
fortunately, as he sometimes mused, fights were getting 
fewer and fewer. Even Truck Sanders, guard on the 
football team, had sidestepped one with him, for now 
Goody had strength as well as the natural courage and 
ferocity that had always been his. And as boys grow 
older, there is less and less to fight about. When 
Goody lost his temper now without finding a human 

50 


SOUND AND FURY 
being upon whom he could legitimately or semi- 
legitimately vent his anger, he would go off by himself 
instead of deliberately attempting to pick a quarrel. 
The other method had a nasty habit of leaving a disa¬ 
greeable after-taste. Once, following an encounter that 
had been only three-quarters his fault, his opponent had 
had to go to bed for a week. Goody learned later that 
the other fellow, Holdman, had been working nights in 
a drug store to pay expenses at school; the boy pawned 
his watch and borrowed money from friends in order 
to reimburse Holdman for his loss of wages and the 
doctors bills and, in addition, had apologized hand¬ 
somely. Holdman had at first refused to take the 
money but Goody had insisted, and only the rarest 
good luck at poker had enabled the latter to repay his 
friends and redeem his watch that same month. 

As a rule Goody was unfortunate at poker and the 
result was that his funds were usually low any time 
after the fifth of the month. He was far too daring. 
It was painful to acknowledge himself beaten even by 
the chance distribution of cards, and all too often he 
would back two pairs to the limit when a cold and un¬ 
biased summary of the situation would have told him 
that they were worthless against the other’s two-card 
draw. But the two pairs were his, and whatever was 
his became enhanced in his eyes. It was that way with 
his mother; it was like that with Con. His father was 
hard and masculine and Goody could see him without 
aura or embellishment, just as he could see himself, but 
about even Tom Penny there was a veil of enchant- 
51 


SOUND AND FURY 

ment. This was sentimentality, rather than sheer 
stupidity, but the results, as they worked themselves out 
at poker, were approximately the same. 

It was not merely among his classmates at the Har- 
persburg Male High School that Goody was popular. 
However, the admiration of the other sex admitted of 
embarrassments, though on the whole it was usually 
pleasing. There was one girl of fifteen or so who 
waited on her front porch every morning to see Goody 
pass. He regarded her as a child, yet the thought was 
distinctly pleasing that even the mere sight of him was 
so important to her. Sometimes he speculated as to 
what was in her mind; sometimes he allowed himself 
to lapse into day-dreams of a beautiful young woman— 
in some way identified with that big-eyed girl on the 
porch—who, unknown to him, would follow her knight 
to the end of the world, wistful, sad-eyed, happy if only 
she could mark his crest as he ascended a summit in 
the distance, who would then become involved in toils 
and dangers and who would miraculously be saved by 
that same knight then realizing for the first time that 
he loved her. 

And there was the grocer’s daughter, blonde, red¬ 
cheeked, deep-bosomed, who would contrive to wait 
upon him whenever he consented to perform an errand. 
What if a knight chose to marry a simple peasant maid 
and then compelled lords and courtiers to do her hom¬ 
age? Or, better still, determined to make her a queen 
and, with her mounted behind him, set off to conquer 
a kingdom for her to rule? "It is yours, my lady; this 

52 


SOUND AND FURY 
sword has won it for you.” And the condescension 
would be ten times greater were one never to imply 
condescension by word or glance, if one’s every act in¬ 
ferred that such homage were hers by undeniable right 
of birth. That were a noble role indeed—then in truth 
would one stand out aflame in gleaming armour. 

Such day-dreams did not poach upon Con’s preserves. 
Con’s world was the real world, the world of dances 
and calls and school and lessons, the world of parents 
and teachers and football. In Con’s own world he was 
thoroughly loyal to her. This other world no longer 
had anything to do with her. It was the world into 
which he had often had glimpses as a boy, the world 
of which he had caught an image in the sunset or in 
a great oak dimly outlined against a warm summer 
sky. It was a world of fleeting sensations, vivid, 
pulsating one moment and blank and lifeless the next. 
Only a word was needed to break its spell and some¬ 
times that word was Con’s. 

Goody was self-conscious about caste and traditions 
because Harpersburg was self-conscious on those sub¬ 
jects. Harpersburg was an old and unchanging com¬ 
munity; it had none of the hustle and vigour of the 
younger towns on the Great Lakes and further West. 
Its population was almost stationary; its citizens could 
remember the time when Cleveland and Detroit had 
been little more than frontier posts compared to Har¬ 
persburg. Now Harpersburg was hopelessly outdis¬ 
tanced by them, and even smaller cities like Minneap¬ 
olis and Milwaukee were leaving it far behind. 

53 


SOUND AND FURY 

Later on, as a reflex of the success of those centres, 
Harpersburg was to be rebaptized in the Zenith creed; 
it too was to have its Rotary Club and its bustling 
little Babbitts, its boosters and its go-getters. But for 
the present it had adopted the philosophy of defeat. 
Harpersburg was not growing? So much the better. 
It was escaping undesirable immigration and alien 
strains. The city was not being ruined by factories. 
It would remain a beautiful place in which to live. 

Of course, this philosophy, like most philosophies, 
had little relation to actual conditions. Harpersburg 
was always referred to by its residents as beautiful, and 
the country in which it was situated was indeed lovely, 
but the residents had done their human best to mar it 
by the homes they built. Harpersburg architecture ran 
to one style—the Benjamin Harrison-Grover Cleveland 
period—and where a dweller did succeed in achieving 
distinction it was at the sacrifice of good taste. The in¬ 
spiration of the typical Harpersburg home was the 
wooden packing-box, though innovations in the form 
of a square front porch or even a bay window were per¬ 
mitted. And, since the city burned nothing except 
soft coal, the air was as foul as that of Pittsburgh; fac¬ 
tories innumerable could have been added without 
perceptibly increasing the smoke and grime. 

But because the city was not growing and because 
trade and industry were waning, because Main Street, 
in the wholesale district, which used to be crowded with 
trucks and drays, was now dull and sleepy—because of 
all this, few new fortunes were being made in Harpers¬ 
burg and social life tended to stagnate; prestige re- 

54 


SOUND AND FURY 
mained in the grasp of those who had possessed money 
for some time or who had not lost their money too long 
ago. For, despite the theory that in Harpersburg so¬ 
cial preferment went by family and not by fortune, 
money remained the final arbiter; the Hopkins family 
at last did succeed in breaking into society and the 
Payminsters in the end had to drop out. 

Goody had no illusions about Harpersburg society. 
It was his merely because it was the best obtainable. 
He formed his own opinions, but where he had none he 
was willing to accept the opinions of those around him, 
especially when those about him were his mother and 
Con. He made no concessions; Harpersburg society 
could take him or not, as it pleased. At every party his 
mother gave for him he insisted that Freckle-Face 
O’Reilly be included until Freckle-Face himself, for 
sheer boredom, had begged that he be omitted. 

And Harpersburg society did take him, accepted him 
with open arms—society represented by the boys and 
girls his own age and their parents. It was not the 
Goody Guthrie legend, to be sure, which obtained ad¬ 
mittance for him, but those same qualities which had 
created the legend were still within him. He had been 
more courageous than most boys because he had had 
no doubts—and, least of all, any doubts about himself. 
He had early acquired a contempt for mere physical 
pain and had not been compelled to cringe to older 
boys; on the contrary, it was older boys who had petted 
and flattered him. Here, again, it was his hard com¬ 
mon sense that had saved him; he had not been spoiled 
by this but had appraised this popularity at its proper 
55 


SOUND AND FURY 

value. Even his long feuds with his father had not 
bred any bitterness within him; he had hated his father 
thoroughly and even joyously and that good, clean hate 
had not prevented a real friendship from developing in 
time between the two. 

Goody had never been compelled to hide anything; 
he had hated his father but had not feared him. He 
had been popular with his schoolmates not alone for 
his courage but also for his candour and sincerity, and 
those two qualities were still richly his. There was 
something at once robust and sweet about his virile 
frankness; his fine, free manner, his engaging confidence, 
his lack of self-consciousness, his very self-respect dis¬ 
solved all opposition. He was intelligent, too, but after 
the Harpersburg pattern; his intelligence was not so 
acute as to make conversation with him a problem, nor 
was it mixed with a passion for social justice or other 
ideas that would have rendered him “queer.” 

Thus Mrs. Guthrie saw her son welcomed behind 
doors which, despite all her efforts, had remained closed 
to her. In a sense, however, she went with him there, 
perched like one of Athene's owls upon his shoulder, 
an idolet that he could not leave behind. And on the 
other shoulder was the supplementary idolet, the image 
of Con, to whisper to him that good manners were man¬ 
hood, that tact was triumph, and that the right people 
were right. 


56 


Ill 


H IS twentieth year was full of disappointments. 
It was then that the doctor first told him about 
his heart. The flutter was nothing so serious in 
itself nor did it hold much danger for the immediate 
future, but Goody had to give up athletics of all kinds. 
That was the real blow, Goody thought, but deeper 
than that was the pang accompanying the knowledge 
that no longer could he take that old pride in his body. 
It looked the same as ever—but what good is a car if 
the engine misses? 

The first intimation that anything was wrong with 
his heart had come at the beginning of this, his soph¬ 
omore year, when he was undergoing an examination 
before being allowed to join the varsity football squad. 
The man examining him, one of the assistants in the 
physical education department, had shaken his head 
when listening through the stethoscope and had called 
Doc Myers, head of the department. 

"Nothing wrong there, Doc, I can tell you,” Goody 
had assured the latter cheerfully, and as Myers re¬ 
mained stooped to listen he had thumped the other on 
the bald spot atop his head. Myers responded a mo¬ 
ment later by driving his fist into Goody's solar plexus 
and while the latter was recovering from the blow the 
physician broke the news to him. 

57 


SOUND AND FURY 

'Tin sorry, Guthrie, there's no football for you." 

“Quit your kidding." 

“That’s straight." 

“Why, my heart’s all right. It’s been examined a 
dozen times. You examined it yourself last year." 

“That was last year. It’s nothing to worry about, 
but you’d better see your own physician the next time 
you go home." 

“Damn right I will. Now look here, Doc. You 
know Dr. Carruthers of Harpersburg?" 

“I know who he is." 

''He’s a pretty good man, isn’t he?" 

“Yes." 

“Now look here, not meaning any reflections, but if 
he says my heart is all right for football you’ll let me 
play, won’t you?" 

“He won’t say it." 

“But if he does?" 

“I’ll gamble on that," replied Myers. 

The following Saturday Goody went home and saw 
Dr. Carruthers. The verdict remained unchanged. 
Carruthers repeated Myers’ assurance that there was 
hardly need to worry for the immediate present nor, 
indeed, for the next twenty or thirty years. By 
then it might become a problem. He also told Goody 
he wanted to examine him occasionally. 

Goody had scarcely thought of death—certainly not 
as ever affecting him. It seemed natural enough that 
other people should die, but highly unnatural and im¬ 
probable that this fate would ever overtake him. This 
heart murmur brought the matter a little closer. 

58 


SOUND AND FURY 
What did it feel like to be dead? He never paid the 
least attention to the possibility of any future life, but 
the thought of nothingness perplexed him. Just to be 
nothing at all, for ever and ever and ever, as long as 
life persisted on this globe and for ever thereafter. It 
was like never having been born. How would it feel 
never to have been born, never to have been? 

It was seldom that Goody reflected in this manner, 
for he still was too much interested in life to give much 
heed to death. No change was perceptible in him, 
even to his closest friends. Except that he had to re¬ 
linquish athletic honours, he lived just as he had al¬ 
ways lived, though Carruthers told him that excesses 
of any kind might prove harmful. Like many men, 
he believed what doctors told him when it suited him 
to do so. He felt no doom hanging over him. Deep 
within him he felt that he would outlive Myers and 
Carruthers and their children’s children. 

Goody had not been able to go to the Eastern uni¬ 
versity he had selected. There had been some slight 
difficulty with the College Entrance Board; a mere ten 
per cent or so in Cicero and an equally trivial and 
despicable fifteen per cent in Virgil had stood between 
him and New Haven. He was somewhat disappointed, 
not because he believed the examinations in the least 
important, but because he had looked forward to wear¬ 
ing a blue “Y” on his sweater. 

Rather than wait another year and take up the ques¬ 
tion of Cicero and Virgil with the obnoxious board 
once more, Goody had decided upon a State university 
59 


SOUND AND FURY 

in a near-by Commonwealth, the university in ques¬ 
tion having considerably lower entrance requirements. 
However, he was by no means fully satisfied with his 
choice. There was an appalling air of earnestness 
about many of the students. A large percentage of 
them were earning their way through college and 
looked, in consequence, upon higher education as an ex¬ 
ceedingly serious matter that must in the end pay 
dividends. They seemed actually to want to learn 
things. For his own part, Goody wanted to learn 
things also, but not Mathematics A nor English Lit¬ 
erature B 2. 

His own fraternity, above all. Goody could point 
with pride to as fine a lot of high-minded, studious, 
industrious brothers as had ever been gathered under 
one roof. The unfortunate point was that they were 
endeavouring to transmute Goody into an equally 
high-minded, studious, and industrious sort of person 
and, in consequence, he regarded them as little better 
than prigs. He had no special objection to their being 
high-minded and industrious, for he himself had 
speedily gathered about him from neighbouring fra¬ 
ternities a group of congenial spirits who were willing 
to take life as it came, but he did object to their at¬ 
tempt to foist high-mindedness upon him. 

Too late he discovered that he should never have 
joined the society. It had all been the fault of Con’s 
cousin who belonged to a chapter of that fraternity at 
an Eastern college. Through his influence Goody had 
received a bid—and had accepted. Too late he found 
out that he had cast his lot with youths from small 

60 


SOUND AND FURY 
towns and farms who regarded even a glass of beer 
as evidence of complete abandonment to sin, and whose 
rock-ribbed Methodist or Baptist faiths placed Sunday 
church-going as the first of all virtues. His waning 
zeal for atheism had naturally revived under these 
favourable circumstances, and he never missed an op¬ 
portunity to impress his brothers with his lack of faith 
in what they held most dear. His final step was to 
announce a series of Sunday morning readings (in his 
room) from the works of Huxley, Darwin, and similar 
writers, chosen in the hope that they would shock the 
other occupants of the fraternity house. In this he 
succeeded; one boy from a prairie State actually re¬ 
quested permission to move, fearing that God would 
not permit an edifice in which such meetings occurred 
to remain standing. 

It was not merely that Goody was an Episcopalian 
of very pronounced atheistic leanings and his brothers 
were devout Baptists and Methodists and Seventh Day 
Adventists. It was not merely that he drank hugely 
and joyously, while they abstained. Later on he was 
to make his way with many diverse types of human 
beings; he was to win friendship and loyalty from men 
and women of different creeds and varying social con¬ 
cepts. But he was city-bred and, so far as Harpers- 
burg afforded, cultured; his brothers were rustics with 
an inbred contempt and suspicion of everything urban. 
He was generous; they came from homes in which the 
worth of every penny had carefully been measured. 
He was impulsive; they were restrained. He was 
61 


SOUND AND FURY 

frank; they had the rustic’s love of the tortuous bypath. 
He was still a boy at heart; most of them had, by the 
bitter experiences they had borne, achieved whatever 
manhood they would possess. And because he was still 
a boy, Goody had yet to attain tolerance and catholic 
sympathy. 

A short time before the Christmas vacation Goody 
wrote to his old friend Tom, whom he saw at 
intervals of a year or so and with whom he maintained 
a spasmodic correspondence. The letter ran: 

“Dear Old Somnambulist [which referred to a private 

joke of their own]: 

“It has been a dickens of a time since I’ve written to you 
[thus the invariable invocation] but what’s the good of 
bothering about that? As usual, when I’m in a hell of a 
mess I write to you and get it off my chest. 

“It’s nothing very much this time, because I for once have 
the pure and virtuous feeling of being in the right. Ain’t 
virtue wonderful?—or perhaps it is so only to a bird like 
me to whom it is a novelty. At any rate I feel like the 
kid who was kept in after school by his teacher and who 
remarked upon leaving the schoolhouse—but you are well 
acquainted with the classic epigram. 

“By this time your curiosity has been sufficiently aroused 
and you want to know the explanation for the feeling of 
goodness that suffuses me. Perhaps you’ll be disappointed 
at the explanation. The whole thing is I've tried to be 
altruistic for once and carry the light of pure reason to 
these benighted souls from the backwoods. Merely in the 
interest of their spiritual welfare and at no small personal 
inconvenience I have tried to rescue their souls from the 

62 


SOUND AND FURY 
blighting effect of Methodism, Congregationalism, Baptism, 
et al. Are they grateful? To about the same degree as 
Nero. 

“This was on the principle that the best defence is an 
attack. They were attacking me pretty strongly on the score 
of my morals and lack of religion, so I counter-attacked all 
down the line. Frankly, however, it hasn’t been much of 
a success. I doubt if IVe shaken the piety of a single one 
of my brothers, for, if you must know it, that is the bunch 
with whose souls I have been wrestling. 

“Here is the latest situation: My dear brothers passed 
the rule that every member must live in the fraternity house. 
They thought they would nail me down so they would have 
me handy whenever they got in a pious mood and wanted 
to start a prayer meeting. So far, so good. Their excuse 
was that the chapter needs the money, but that’s not true. 
However, what can you expect of religious fanatics? 
Certainly not ordinary honesty. 

“The next rule was a humdinger. Any man who comes 
in drunk is fined five dollars. Since I am the only member 
who ever drinks anything harder than cider, it’s easy to 
see at whom this is aimed. I couldn’t object to that, but 
I did make a hell of a kick at the way they carried it out. 
For instance, Tuesday night, according to their claim, I 
broke the rule, but, as a matter of fact, I didn’t come into 
the house at all—just stood in the doorway and had one of 
them throw me my raincoat. The telling point against 
me in their eyes, as it turned out, was the use I expected to 
make of the raincoat—I remember I had the very definite 
intention of putting it on and taking a bath in the campus 
fountain. So I lost and was fined five dollars, which I paid 
under mighty strong protest. How many times they are 
going to repeat this I don’t know, but they certainly can 
63 


SOUND AND FURY 

make an awful dent in my allowance. Suppose I bill the 
governor for it—One drunk—Fine, five dollars (|5)—ap¬ 
proved, D G E., Secretary? Wouldn’t that make a hit? 

“As a matter of fact, I am getting more and more tired of 
this whole rotten business. I’m out of athletics and there 
isn’t anything in my classes to make up for having to as¬ 
sociate with a bunch of mid-Victorian fatheads. Equally 
as a matter of fact, there isn’t anything in my classes at 
all. They’re just about like high school—homework and 
the rest of it—except that you’re called “mister” and never 
kept in. You seem to be getting stuff that satisfies you, 
but nothing here satisfies me—not even the whisky. 

“I’ve got some crazy ideas and I guess this is one of them, 
but it does seem to me a bunch of fellows—not too many, 
say about half a dozen—could get a lot more by being with 
someone like the governor for a year and getting his ideas 
of downright decency and honesty and his notions about 
religion and politics and what science means—the governor 
doesn’t know a blooming thing about science but he knows 
what it means —well, as I said, half a dozen fellows could 
get more out of a year like that than they could out of 
four years at this college. You see, I think pretty highly 
of the governor in spite of everything that’s passed between 
us. I see that better now, and a lot of it was my fault 
and a lot of it was his fault because he’s so much like me— 
I mean I’m so much like him. That sounds as if I think 
pretty well of myself after what I said about the governor, 
but I mean I’ve got his nasty temper and something of his 
fighting spirit and something of the way he has of looking 
at things. 

“So I don’t think I’ll come back here next year. I’d stop 
now, but it would look like quitting. I ask myself, 'what 
do I care what a bunch of religious nobodies think?’ and 

64 


SOUND AND FURY 
I know I oughtn’t to give a damn, but they’re not going 
to have the feeling that they’ve run me out of college— 
not until I get good and ready to go. 

“This is a mighty long letter. See if you can beat it. 
Tell me what you’re doing and what you're thinking about. 
I hear you are going to make Phi Beta Kappa. That’s fair 
enough, because I’m about to balance things by flunking 
every course except Physical Education, from which I’m 
excused on account of my heart. Well, here’s hoping! 

“Goody.” 

It was about this time that Goody decided to “go 
straight’’ in sex matters. The decision was doubly 
hard, because that was another issue on which he could 
have defied his fraternity. He liked to feel himself 
adamant on any point of “morality,” refusing to ad¬ 
mit that he was bound by the “slave morality” of the 
herd—he had gained a superficial acquaintance with 
Nietzsche. So he based his principle upon mere physi¬ 
cal cowardice—fear of contracting a disease. That op¬ 
erated to some extent in his case, to be sure—he had 
known more than one friend in Harpersburg to lose his 
health and his chance of marriage and fatherhood 
through trips down the line or through intimacy with 
chorus girls in burlesque companies or similar ex¬ 
amples of feminine frailty. To him, unlike many, per¬ 
haps most, young men at his age, the thought of mar¬ 
riage and paternity was vivid—for there was Con. 
Their relations were the same as always; she had never 
said she would marry him and he had never seriously 
asked for her promise, but he lived in the complacent 
assumption that some day she would be his wife. 

65 


SOUND AND FURY 

In college he had been told that sexual intercourse 
was not necessary for a young man, and he did not 
toss this aside as mere religious flapdoodle, because 
it had come from Doc Myers, his friend. Myers also 
gave him a pamphlet which pointed out the possible 
consequences of association with loose women, but 
Goody did not need the pamphlet—his Harpersburg 
memories were sufficient. 

Added to this was the fact that his mother had be¬ 
come one of the most earnest advocates in Harpersburg 
of woman suffrage—by now interest in this subject was 
socially correct—and, as a corollary, she had taken up 
a thoroughly Harpersburgian and devitalized version 
of feminism. Even thus strained and filtered, however, 
feminism could not but suggest that one sex had no 
more right to sexual adventures than the other. 

Reared, as he was, amid a luxuriant growth of cant 
and sentimentality on this subject. Goody was unable 
to conceive of Con wanting sexual adventures outside 
marriage—indeed, it was impossible for him to think 
of her actively desiring such experiences even with the 
protection of the sacred marriage banns. Whatever 
individuality of intellect he possessed failed to function 
in the case of Con precisely as it failed in the case of 
his mother. Nevertheless, the suggestion was there. 
Was he playing fair with Con? Above all, he must be 
fair to one so pure and holy as she. 

From the grossness of sexual relations as he knew 
them Goody had always revolted. His revulsion was 
not merely physical and aesthetic, though it was that in 
large measure. It was partly mere social snobbery. 

66 


SOUND AND FURY 
He had discovered that a prostitute in Harpersburg 
for whom he had imagined he had possessed some 
fondness had once been a cook. Neither Swinburne nor 
Oscar Wilde had prepared him for this. It made a 
tawdry affair even more shameful. He had once im¬ 
agined himself a knight who for sheer love and by single 
might had raised a simple peasant maid to a throne. 
But cooks were different. Goody drew the line at 
kitchen mechanics. 

So from cooks and prostitutes and artificial endear¬ 
ments, from preventives of social diseases and disin¬ 
fectants and all the trappings and concomitants of the 
brothel Goody cut himself free. At first it was ex¬ 
tremely hard; suddenly it became ridiculously easy and 
he wondered that he had ever felt that this was impos¬ 
sible. Seldom in his waking moments did these long¬ 
ings trouble him. 

For the most part the co-eds interested Goody very 
little. They were of the same timber as the male stu¬ 
dents and in many of them the schoolma’am grain al¬ 
ready was evident. Goody was too much disgusted 
with the thinness, the narrowness, the aridity of his 
fellows to seek that same thinness and aridity among 
the young women who vainly imagined that they were 
being educated. 

Nor was Goody himself the natural goal of feminine 
ambition, as he had been in high school. He was no 
longer an athletic star. His fraternity, though first- 
class, was humdrum. He did not expand as easily and 
freely in the college atmosphere as in Harpersburg, 
67 


SOUND AND FURY 

When sober he was inclined to be taciturn in the com¬ 
pany of co-eds, and when drunk his good sense kept 
him away from their orbit. 

Still, there were some that were anxious to get better 
acquainted with this young fellow, so evidently decent, 
so patently sincere, so foolishly frank (as to his lack of 
knowledge of the day’s subject), so well-mannered with¬ 
out being a fusser, so different from their own yokel 
Jacks and clumsy, lumbering Bills. Goody met their 
advances courteously, but his lack of interest was so 
apparent that the faint-hearted did not persist. Even 
young women from the prairie States know when a 
young fellow merely wants them to exert themselves 
further and when he desires to be left alone. 

Gertrude, however, persevered, for persevering had 
become a habit with her. If she had not persevered, 
she would not have succeeded in reaching college or 
even in completing her studies at the local high school. 
Gertrude was not beautiful—her thin-lipped mother 
and hard-faced, heavy-handed father had attended to 
that. She was of less than medium height and slender; 
her complexion was fairly good, but her nose was short, 
her eyes too close together. She was a grind and was 
marked for Phi Beta Kappa and, because it was the 
only way she knew of earning a living away from home, 
for the profession of teaching. But she was of the stuff 
of which genuine teachers are made. Given a fair 
chance, it seemed that she might be one to win the 
disapprobation of trustees by inculcating in her stu¬ 
dents not self-satisfaction and an orthodox respect for 
Packards, country estates, and winters in California, but 

68 


SOUND AND FURY 
intellectual curiosity, alertness, and a determination to 
give to every belief and every institution only the 
loyalty to which it could prove itself entitled. Some 
such examination of her own Gertrude had already 
conducted, and now she found herself left with little 
more intellectual luggage than that with which she had 
entered the world, plus that acquired from one dear 
teacher and the Carnegie Library of Middletown. 

What did Gertrude see in Goody? For her he came 
to mean bigness and freedom. She had never met 
either before. All her life had been cramped and re¬ 
pressed; she had known the discipline of domestic 
tyranny plus that of religion, poverty, and narrowness 
of social conventions. In Middletown every move in 
public was studied with a thought to what people would 
say; here was a man serenely oblivious of what every¬ 
body said. Though he did not share any of her views 
as to what constituted economic or social freedom, he 
had achieved a freedom of his own none the less glorious 
for the fact that the formula which made it possible 
applied to him alone. And he was not only free but 
big—candid, joyous, laughing at petty annoyances, ir¬ 
repressible, boy-hearted, brave. Sometimes she won¬ 
dered what would happen if those two great arms of his 
ever folded themselves about the huge hulk of her 
father. And those same arms—could they not afford 
an altogether different embrace? 

The first time they spoke to each other was in Octo¬ 
ber after a late class in history. Goody was one of the 
last to leave, due partly to the fact that he did not 
become fully roused until the shuffling of feet began. 
69 


SOUND AND FURY 

When he reached the door of the building, he saw there 
this slim, dark-eyed thing, shivering and looking at the 
rain. 

“It seems a little damp/' Goody commented to the 
girl, whom he knew only by sight and of whose name 
he was ignorant. “Won't you take my raincoat?" 

“Oh, I won't bother you; it can't last long." 

“It's evident that you've been studying history; your 
knowledge of the past is excellent but you don't qualify 
as a prophetess. This rain is going to last all night. 
So take my raincoat without any fuss, like a good girl." 

“But what will you do?" 

“The rain won't hurt me—it never does," as was the 
truth. 

“I feel like a pig." 

“Just what Queen Elizabeth remarked to Sir Walter 
Raleigh." 

She laughed and he followed suit, revealing his strong, 
beautiful teeth and his deep, throaty chuckle. Goody 
enjoyed his own jokes but never too long. By this time 
she had put on his raincoat. 

“How'll I give this back to you? There isn't an¬ 
other class until Friday and you may need it." 

“I'll come with you, if you don't mind." 

‘•‘It's a long walk in the rain." 

“I'll enjoy it." 

The raincoat was several sizes too large for her and 
it almost trailed on the ground, but it answered the 
purpose. Goody walked along carelessly with an easy 
swinging gait; he found it difficult to accommodate his 
stride to hers. The rain beat down on him and soon 

70 


SOUND AND FURY 
was streaming from his hat and sleeves, but he laughed 
at it. 

“If you catch cold Fll never forgive myself.” 

“Why stop at a cold? Why not pneumonia?” 

In spite of herself she laughed. “You don’t believe 
in doing anything by halves, do you?” It was a shot 
home and Goody noted it with a kind of surprise. “But 
honestly 1 didn’t know it was raining so hard.” 

“Really, it won’t hurt me. I’ll take a drink and a 
shower and be absolutely fit.” 

Gertrude Skinner lived “off campus” in a dingy two- 
story frame house that had received the approval of the 
university authorities because of its excellent moral 
atmosphere—provided by the Misses Mason. The 
authorities were apparently oblivious of the fact that 
the cooking furnished by those same excellent persons 
was calculated to undo all the work of the moral at¬ 
mosphere and inevitably doomed anyone who partook 
of it for four years to the pangs of dyspepsia for life. 
Goody came into the hall with the girl and lit the gas¬ 
light; he was sorry that she was not pretty, but it was 
a detached, rather impersonal sentiment. He had of¬ 
fered her his raincoat in a spirit of human decency 
rather than gallantry; he would have been glad had 
she turned out to be better-looking than she seemed 
across the classroom, but it really mattered very 
little. 

“I can’t tell you how kind it was of you to bring 
me home like this and let me have your raincoat.” 

“It wasn’t anything—I’ve enjoyed the walk.” So 
he had, but he did not know exactly why. 

71 


SOUND AND FURY 

"It seems a shame for you to put it on now. You’ll 
just get it wet.” 

‘Til carry it, because I’ll be back at the house soon.” 

‘‘Better run on and apply your restoratives.” 

‘‘No chance of me forgetting them. Good night.” 

Upstairs Gertrude’s roommate looked at her with 
more interest than she had ever before displayed. 

‘‘Fussing?” 

"No.” 

"Oh.” A moment’s pause. "But I thought I heard 
someone with you.” 

"Just a young fellow who lent me his raincoat”— 
which was uncommunicative and snippy even to stingi¬ 
ness and for which niggardliness Gertrude was to pay 
in full measure. But she did not want to talk about 
him. The phrase "a young fellow” had slipped out un¬ 
consciously. She did feel very old compared to him. 
Like him she was twenty, but in her eyes he was only 
a lad. He was untouched by so much that she knew 
bitterly. 

After the class on Friday, they had a few moments’ 
conversation. 

"No cold?” 

"Not even pneumonia.” 

"It’s nice of you to take it so lightly. But really I 
was worried.” 

"Don’t make me feel heroic—as though I were one 
of the ten thousand who marched to the sea or some¬ 
thing of the sort.” 

Wistfully: "You’ve studied Greek?” 

"Yes—for two weeks.” As a matter of fact it had 

72 


SOUND AND FURY 
been three weeks, but this was during the vogue of Mrs. 
Glyn’s novel and there was a certain embarrassment 
connected with using that expression. 

He did not offer to walk home with her that day. 
He had half meant to, hoping to recapture some of the 
utterly absurd pleasure—for there was no accounting for 
it logically—he had had that first time. But he did 
continue to see her in the history class and in an hour 
devoted once a week to the history of art—cinch course 
extraordinary. After a few introductory remarks the 
instructor would turn out the lights and show lantern 
slides of paintings and sculptures. Goody had often 
seized this opportunity for a nap. When he felt suf¬ 
ficiently wide-awake, however, he would sit next to Miss 
Skinner and the two would exchange scattered remarks 
in whispers. 

She was an unusual girl. Goody decided she was not 
ugly—just barely homely, in fact. There was an 
earnestness about her that on some occasions he found 
interesting and funny and on others just plain funny— 
an earnestness which did not keep her from seeing and 
enjoying a joke. But she was as devoid of feminine 
wiles as a puppy. She did not try to lead a fellow on. 
She did not “play up” to one. She was plainly inter¬ 
ested in Goody and she made no more attempt to hide 
this than the fact that she had two feet. On the other 
hand, when his conversation bored her, it was just as 
easy to tell that, too. She had a lot of pride, but it was 
not pride of the ordinary kind. For instance, the first 
time they went anywhere together was when Con disap¬ 
pointed him and telegraphed on Friday that she could 
73 


SOUND AND FURY 

not come for Saturday’s game. He had the tickets and 
he invited Gertrude without much caring whether or 
not she accepted. She did accept, though any one of 
the sorority girls could have told her that she had been 
second choice. 

Coming home from the game, she asked Goody: 
“Didn’t you play on your freshman team?” 

“Yes.” Then, because that did not seem sufficient 
reply, he added (though he thought everyone in the 
university knew about his heart, for he had been 
counted upon as a Varsity back): “The fools wouldn’t 
let me play this year. Said something was wrong with 
my ticker.” 

“Oh.” She was doubly embarrassed because she did 
not know what part of the male organism the ticker 
might be. Goody sensed this. 

“My heart’s really all right, you know. But they’re 
fools and extra careful.” 

She was sorry it was his heart, yet that other un¬ 
certainty was ended. 

“But oughtn’t you to take care of yourself?” 

It was the first time she had referred even by implica¬ 
tion to his reputation. “Yes and no,” he replied. 
“I'll take life, but on my own terms—as long as I can 
feel that I’m myself and enjoying myself. If I can’t 
—why, they’re welcome to it but I don’t want it.” 

“But what is your life?” she persisted. “Aren’t there 
bigger things in which you can be yourself and enjoy 
yourself?” 

“Maybe. The things I’m doing now may not inter¬ 
est me for ever and I won’t want them after they don’t 

74 


SOUND AND FURY 
interest me. But while I want them—you know how 
the song from Mile. Modiste goes/' 

At first Goody had thought of her as a little brown 
bird, almost indistinguishable from the withered leaves 
of autumn, scurrying away at the approach of a 
stranger. She had a queer trick of carrying books 
under one arm that reminded him somehow of a bird 
with a broken wing. There was something birdlike, 
also, about her small, thin face with its pointed nose. 
But Goody found that these resemblances did not go 
farther. Bit by bit she told him about herself and her 
girlhood. He realized that there had been nothing bird¬ 
like about the manner in which she had accepted the 
challenge of life and flung herself to meet it. It was 
a small enough thing—and Goody was all for the grand 
manner and the big scale—but there was a bit of the 
heroic in it, too. What he did not fully understand, 
however, was that, courageous as she seemed, she 
wanted someone to confide in and even to lean upon, 
someone not of her own sex, someone with intelligence 
enough to recognize what she had to offer, someone 
to whom she could give herself without sense of 
degradation. 

Gertrude for her part realized this almost as little as 
Goody, yet as she came to know him better he became 
more and more important to her—meeting him in class¬ 
room or on the campus was no mere detail of the day’s 
happenings but the hub about which everything else 
revolved. There was something infinitely charming 
about his sturdy, simple virility, his utter lack of all 
75 


SOUND AND FURY 

affectation, his straightforward courtesy, his smile that 
enveloped you completely, his deep chuckle that in¬ 
cluded you in it. She realized that intellectually he 
was not her equal, but he did not pretend to be. On 
the other hand, he was equally free from that far com¬ 
moner and more dangerous pose that so many college 
students adopt—complete scorn of everything “high¬ 
brow” or artistic or fundamental. Thanks to Con, he 
could pass as well-read, and he could discuss with her 
not only current novelists but Socialism and other 
theories of social reform. 

It was a trivial incident that brought home to her 
how much he meant. A sprucely dressed young man 
had sought out Goody at the fraternity house and sent 
in a card, explaining that Goody’s father had sug¬ 
gested he call upon him. He spoke intimately and 
warmly of the boy’s parents and mentioned other peo¬ 
ple in Harpersburg. Then he came to the object of 
his visit. A cheque that should have reached him had 
gone astray and he had to leave for Chicago that eve¬ 
ning. Would Goody lend him ten dollars? 

“Ten dollars? That won’t take you to Chicago,” 
Goody told him and the other paled, not understanding 
what was behind the remark. He stammered that he 
still had a few dollars left. 

“Nonsense, you must let me give you twenty-five 
dollars at least,” Goody insisted and the other agreed, 
but when it came out that Goody did not have that 
much money readily available and would have to get 
a cheque cashed, the young man returned to the ten 
dollars—he was in a hurry. 


76 


SOUND AND FURY 

"The train doesn't leave until 11:15; we have plenty 
of time." And Goody took his visitor in tow, bought 
him a couple of drinks, and had the saloon-keeper cash 
his cheque. With profuse thanks the young man left, 
promising to send the money from Chicago. "No 
hurry about it at all," were Goody's last words to him. 

Of course, the money did not come, and finally the 
story leaked out, for at the time Goody had made no 
secret about it, first attempting to get his cheque cashed 
by a friend. Gertrude saw the whole thing as though 
it had happened before her—Goody, so utterly candid 
and honest that he could not suspect the stranger, press¬ 
ing the money into the hand of the dapper sharper whose 
back he could have broken across his knee. For the 
moment she forgot everything about him save his abso¬ 
lute sweetness, his thoroughgoing and unflinching kind¬ 
ness and generosity. She understood how he had given 
that trickster the money just as he had insisted upon 
her taking his raincoat one stormy afternoon. Within 
him there was a deep well of goodness and love. Would 
it ever run dry? She heard again his chuckle when he 
was twitted about being an "easy mark." He was 
neither proud nor ashamed. 

No, she told herself, that well would never run dry. 
And the world would always hold a place for one so 
abounding in faith and affection as he. 

He told Con about Gertrude during the Christmas 
holidays—what little there was to tell. From the first 
Con showed a real hostility toward her, a hostility that 
frequently betrayed itself in an acid curiosity and, less 
77 


SOUND AND FURY 

frequently, in petty slurs hinted rather than expressed. 
Goody was puzzled. Con had never been jealous be¬ 
fore. He knew that there was nothing to be jealous of 
now. Gertrude did not stir him at all as Con did—as 
other girls could when he let them. Then why was Con 
so peculiar about this particular girl? 

The boy did not understand that it was because this 
was the first real contact he had formed with a girl 
outside Con’s world. The drabs did not count—they 
were part of Con’s world, an integral part on which 
the society she valued so highly was founded. This 
was an interloper, an alien being. Goody’s mother 
sensed that fact as well as Con. Gertrude was bring¬ 
ing to Goody berself and her own ideas, not the re¬ 
actions of others and the backwash of provincial cul¬ 
ture. The idolets had not left his shoulders. They 
were frightened and they whispered to him to beware 
of this strange creature. 

That spring things went from bad to worse. In most 
of his courses there were slight prospects of Goody pass¬ 
ing. Even C, the “gentleman’s mark,” seemed beyond 
his reach. No-member of his fraternity spoke to him; 
within the walls of his fraternity house—the word had 
so completely lost its significance that the irony of it 
did not bite any longer—he moved in a cyst of silence. 
He had plenty of friends in other fraternities—he was 
as welcome in the D T B house as though he were a 
member—but they were not like his friends in Harpers- 
burg. He thought that the young fellows themselves 
were different; on the contrary, they were as much like 

78 


SOUND AND FURY 
his friends at home as Cleveland is like Detroit. The 
difference was that they had not been touched by the 
Goody Guthrie legend and that with them Goody did 
not have the old associations and the memories that 
bound him to the friends of his boyhood. 

It was the baseball season and by every rule of jus¬ 
tice Goody should have been trying for third base on 
the Varsity. Baseball required only a B on physical 
examination as against the more strenuous football, 
where an A was necessary, and Goody made another 
effort to be declared eligible. His standing in his 
studies would alone have been sufficient to bar him, 
but the question never got so far as that, for Doc Myers 
returned an emphatic and unqualified “no” which 
closed the situation. 

Gertrude could make up only in small part for these 
tribulations. If Goody had been able to idealize her 
this might have been different, but he saw her more 
clearly than any girl he had ever known. About her 
there was none of the arid romanticism that enveloped 
Con. This was by no means the first friendship he had 
had with a girl without being aware of sex—there was 
Edith Linthicum, for instance, with whom he used to 
play tennis—but most of the other friendships had 
been founded upon a common interest in sport or some 
other form of pleasure. His friendship with Gertrude 
was the first association he had had with a girl that on 
his part was primarily intellectual. 

It was not merely that he enjoyed exchanging ideas 
with her. He respected her spunk tremendously. 
Sometimes he tried to imagine what she would be like 
79 


SOUND AND FURY 

if she had been born into a family like the Linthicums 
—but such an attempt ended in failure. After all, it 
was impossible to conceive of Gertrude except as she 
was. If there had not been that bitterness and those 
struggles it would not be Gertrude. 

He knew that she admired him, but he was accus¬ 
tomed to admiration. For his own part he returned 
this admiration with the good, clean respect he gave to 
a spirited horse. Like him and like the horse, she was 
an aristocrat, though she spoke in terms of social democ¬ 
racy. He saw her seldom, aside from their meetings 
in the classroom and chance encounters on the campus; 
each time she seemed to give him something fresh and 
spontaneous. The mere fact that a girl could be poor 
without whining about it or apologizing for it—and 
without making a fetish of poverty as did the Pay- 
minsters and other decayed F. F. V.’s at home—was in 
itself a revelation to him. 

The afternoon before the spring term ended they 
went canoeing together. On their way up the river 
Gertrude sat in the bow and, under Goody’s careful in¬ 
struction, helped him paddle the boat. It was the first 
time she had even been in a canoe, but she made good 
progress. A few miles up the river they stopped and 
ate the sandwiches they had brought with them; then 
Goody smoked his pipe and they watched the sun as 
it dropped toward the West. 

“There’s no chance of your returning?” she asked. 

“None.” 

“I don’t blame you.” 


80 


SOUND AND FURY 

"But you’re such a shark in your classes. Isn’t 
what’s good for you good for me too?” 

"Not always. I can get what I want here—some¬ 
thing, at least, of what I’m after. You don’t want those 
things now. Perhaps you don’t need them. Perhaps 
some day you’ll want them, but you won’t have to come 
here for them.” 

Goody smoked a moment, then: 

"Honestly, you’re the only human being here I’ll 
miss.” 

"So you admit I’m human?” 

"Not very. You’re mostly brain.” It was a bit 
cruel and he regretted it. "I wish I had some of yours.” 

She looked at him. "You know very well that being 
able to get an A in solid geometry doesn’t mean a 
thing. Don’t you?” 

"Yes.” Reluctantly. 

"Then why pretend?” 

"But that isn’t the only kind of brains you have. 
Gee whiz, you’re brilliant—for a girl.” It was an at¬ 
tempt to turn the matter off lightly. 

"Thanks.” 

In a different tone she began a few moments later: 

"I can’t tell you how much I've enjoyed knowing you. 
You're almost the only friend I’ve ever had.” 

"You’re going to have lots of friends later on—people 
who can mean much more to you. Writers and folks 
like that,” 

"They won't be as big as you are.” 

The boy coloured. "I didn’t know friendship went 
by weight,” he muttered. 

81 


SOUND AND FURY 

“You know what I mean.” 

“I’m not big,” he replied defensively. “You’re com¬ 
paring me with the wrong kind of people. Shrimp 
Sawyer would look like a giant if he went to a country 
where there weren’t anything but dwarfs. I admit 
I’m not a Hardshell Baptist nor a shouting Methodist, 
but-” 

“It’s not that, Goody. You could be a Holy Roller 
and still you’d be a big person.” 

The other was silent, so the girl went on: 

“We won’t ever see each other again—why shouldn’t 
we be honest with each other now? You’re the biggest 
person I’ve ever known and I don’t think I’ll ever meet 
anyone as big as you again. There are brainier people 
than you and I guess there are kinder, but there’s none 
as big as you. I don’t think you ever did a mean or 
little thing in your-” 

“Lots. I’ve done lots. You don’t know me, that’s 
all. I’ve done lots of mean little things and I guess 
I’ll do lots more before I die. And you know blame 
well I’m no Sir Galahad, or, if I am, there was lots in 
old Galahad’s life that his widow kept out of the obit¬ 
uary notice—no, I don’t guess there was a widow, was 
there?” 

“Goody, I'm serious. I wanted to tell you that. 
Your faults don’t matter a darn to me. You’re Goody 
Guthrie and that’s—well, that’s so big a thing I don’t 
know why you ever bothered with me at all. Shall 
we start back?” 

It was an abrupt and grateful conclusion. Goody 
did all the paddling on the return trip. Gertrude was 

82 




SOUND AND FURY 
tired. She sat on some cushions in the bottom of the 
boat and watched him. The air and water were abso¬ 
lutely still. Sometimes they seemed to be gliding un¬ 
cannily between two worlds, so faithfully was the solid 
world mirrored in the liquid. Among such unreal sur¬ 
roundings one lost all sense of space and of identity; 
one's very being seemed, like the canoe, suspended be¬ 
tween the known and the unknown. As the sun dis¬ 
appeared, however, the spell was broken and the dark 
shadows from the western bank obscured the new 
world that had been pictured beneath them. 

It was almost dark when they tied up the canoe. 
There had been little conversation between them on the 
way back. Goody helped the girl up the landing and 
he retained her arm as they walked toward her house. 
For a moment he thought she was struggling to release 
it, but she had merely slipped it back further so that her 
hand nestled within his. Goody was slightly per¬ 
plexed and slightly thrilled. 

'This isn't good-bye," he told her. "I’ll see you to¬ 
morrow." But she knew otherwise. For a moment 
in the vestibule of the house she faced him—then 
slowly put her arms about his neck and, drawing him 
down to her, kissed him. 

“I’m human, Goody, I'm human," she whispered. 

Half automatically he placed his arms about her. 
The words that came to him seemed stupid. “I'm not 
worth this," he told her. "You make me ashamed of 
myself." 

She kissed him again. "You're worth everything. 
I might be ashamed too, but I'm not. Goody, you 
83 


SOUND AND FURY 

can have all of me. I don’t ask anything else. If 
you don’t want to see me again you needn’t.” 

Something chilled his blood. He was in terror of this 
strong, strange creature who flung herself naked before 
him. 

“God bless you,” he said brokenly. “You are my 
dearest friend. I’m not going to be a scoundrel toward 
you.” 

He kissed her now for the first time. That was their 
parting. He walked slowly toward the room he was 
to sleep in for the last night, feeling himself wholly a 
prig and something of a cad as well. 


84 


IV 


UGUST, 1914. Goody looked at the letter before 



him from Tom. 'They can't fight. Serbia is 


1 * trying to conciliate Austria. That means Russia 
has informed her that she (Russia) won’t back her any 
further. The whole thing is going to end in a sort of 
general arbitration. There can’t be any big war. 
Where’d they get the money?” 

That letter and his faith in Tom’s judgment about 
such things had cost him fifty dollars. He felt no 
resentment toward his friend—Tom had had a good 
hunch that seemed worth backing but it hadn’t quite 
worked out. Probably it had been just as Tom had 
said and then some fool had gone and upset things. 

The war meant many different things to Goody. 
First there was the mere immensity of it—the breadth 
and sweep of the panorama. Then there came the call 
to adventure and high emprise. He knew he could not 
accept it because there was Con and the success he had 
to build for himself in order to be able to marry her, 
but for the moment he felt like kicking everything of 
the sort aside and following what seemed to be his star. 
As a boy he had said that he would either be hanged 
or be President. At his present rate of progress he was 
not likely to achieve either distinction. Perhaps the 


85 


SOUND AND FURY 

war would afford, if not a short cut to the Presidency, 
at least a quicker route to fame. 

If he had fought he would not have known which 
side to choose. His own sympathy was all with the 
Germans; he had been completely won by the barbaric 
magnificence of their gesture upon entering Belgium, 
by Bethmann-Hollweg’s arrogant assertion that what 
his nation had done was unjustifiable. Every aristo¬ 
cratic fibre within him thrilled to the manner in which 
the German had brushed aside all hypocrisy and codes 
of international morality. Even the way in which Ger¬ 
many was later to conduct the war did not alienate 
this sympathy. The Germans were carrying on war as 
Goody himself would have waged it. He had no love 
for people in the mass. Kind as he was to individuals 
of all degrees, he admitted no claim that humanity in 
the abstract possessed upon him. In his own combats 
as a boy he had practised Schrecklichkeit of a sort— 
the very terror of his name had been enough to send 
street rowdies fleeing in panic. Also, the fundamental 
German philosophy approached somewhat that ques¬ 
tion he had enunciated for himself as a boy—“Perhaps 
there isn’t any right at all, and a thing seems right to 
us because we want to do it.” 

But in spite of this thoroughgoing sympathy with 
the Germans, he would not have enlisted with them be¬ 
cause it seemed certain that they would win—and what 
glory is there in being on the winning side? As a boy 
Goody had been a Trojan, a Bonapartist, and a Con¬ 
federate; he remained incurably romantic. The only 
occasions when Goody thrilled with the Allied cause 

86 


SOUND AND FURY 
was when he pictured beleaguered Paris gallantly fight¬ 
ing for her life. The false note in this vision was the 
fact that Goody, like most Americans, had derived all 
his ideas of contemporary Frenchmen from Alphonse 
and Gaston in the Sunday supplements. 

In what the press termed the fundamental causes of 
the war and the moral purposes of the Allies Goody 
took no interest. He viewed the war in the same man¬ 
ner in which he looked back upon the gang fights be¬ 
tween the Second Streeters and the Third Streeters, and 
he could discern no difference in the merits of the two 
sides nor in the motives which led them into the war. 
He gave up trying to argue with Con; what was obtuse¬ 
ness in her he ascribed to mere goodness of heart. The 
girl was a queer mixture, a militant supporter of the 
Allies—all the best people were for them, including 
the embattled Episcopal Church—but her support was 
merely moral; so far as this country was concerned, 
she was strenuously pacifist. No one here was think¬ 
ing of war as yet, but when opinion began to be moulded 
in that direction Con, to the surprise of those who knew 
her best, stood out against it for some time—certainly 
not long enough to make her unpleasantly conspicuous 
—because she realized the inroads it would make upon 
her pleasant little world. 

As time wore on, any taint of pro-Germanism began 
to be less and less socially tolerable. Con used to 
warn Goody but without effect. Strangely enough, 
however, the unpopularity associated with any sym¬ 
pathy for the Teutonic cause never attached itself to 
the young man, and he would not have cared greatly if 
87 


SOUND AND FURY 

it had. Fortunately, everyone knew in his case that he 
was not of German descent, for this in itself, somehow 
or other, had become unforgivable unless one expiated it 
by developing into the type of Anglomaniac that made 
sensible Englishmen blush. Also, it was apparent that 
Goody was not in the pay of the Kaiser; as a matter 
of fact, the arguments he used in behalf of the Germans 
were precisely those that would make enemies rather 
than adherents for the Central Powers. 

"I know Germany isn't a democracy," he said on one 
occasion. “Who wants a democracy? Sentimental 
nincompoops and the feeble-minded—roughly, ninety 
per cent of the population. That's just the ninety per 
cent that oughtn't to have anything to say about the 
government, because they don't know what's good for 
them, and what's good for them isn't of any particular 
importance anyway. What that ninety per cent needs 
is a boss, and in Germany they've got one. 

“ ‘World power or downfall!' That's the way to talk 1 
They're playing for big stakes and they know what it 
will mean if they lose. The Allies want the world 
power, all right, but they are trying to play it safe. 
They won't take any chances. If Germany had Eng¬ 
land's fleet do you think she’d keep it bottled up? No, 
sir, she’d push her chips into the middle of the table and 
bet everything on that fleet. She fights a war the same 
way that McLoughlin plays tennis. All or nothing, 
and no pious hypocrisy about it!" 

All or nothing! It was the way Goody played cards 
and the way he was meant to live. But few persons 

88 


SOUND AND FURY 
in Harpersburg were following their natural inclina¬ 
tions and to some extent Goody had been compelled 
to modify his. When he gave up college he had 
taken a job in his father’s printing-plant. He had 
no special leaning toward printing any more than 
he had toward shoe-manufacturing or selling vine¬ 
gar or any other kind of trade, but it seemed to 
promise, a little quicker than anything else, sufficient 
of a competence to permit him to marry. Nor was 
Goody’s case any different from that of most young 
fellows when they begin work; except in the instance 
of those trained for some profession, the search for 
a job is conducted in as casual a manner as though 
one were selecting a dance partner or a fourth at bridge. 
Goody began in his father’s plant because it was at 
hand and success seemed fairly certain; if he had con¬ 
sulted his own desires, he would have forgotten about 
his heart and become a farmer or followed some other 
occupation that would bring him into touch with the 
outdoors and the healing qualities of manual work. 
But there was only a scanty living to be made on a 
farm, and the idea of asking Con to become a farmer’s 
wife was in itself highly amusing. 

During the past ten years the plant had been rather 
prosperous, and Goody, whose clothes and college tui¬ 
tion and spending-money had all come from its linotype 
machines and printing-presses, had had the good fortune 
to have a father able to increase his allowance as his 
needs had expanded. In a good year the plant yielded 
Mr. Guthrie as much as twelve thousand dollars, which 
was sufficient for him to live in a state that Harpers- 
89 


SOUND AND FURY 

burg considered luxurious, but this was not enough to 
provide for another family—unless Goody could earn 
the money by his own exertions. Besides, as Mr. 
Guthrie pointed out, the boy was still too young to 
marry; he was just twenty-two when the European 
War began. 

At first it seemed that Goody’s advent might be dis¬ 
astrous rather than helpful to the business. After a 
short course in the mechanics of printing—Goody, like 
every printer's son, had the general background with 
which to begin—he was made a salesman and a kind 
of all-round assistant to his father. One day, as he 
came in from lunch, his father remarked to him 
casually: 'There’s some kick about that last job for 
Slazenger. Drop in and see what’s the matter.” 

Goody was kept waiting for a quarter of an hour be¬ 
fore he could see young Slazenger—which was bad 
form for Harpersburg. The two older men, Guthrie 
and Slazenger, business friends for a generation, were 
now conducting their negotiations through their sons as 
plenipotentiaries. The younger Slazenger, a few years 
the senior of Goody, looked up as the other entered. 

"Hello, Guthrie,” he remarked lazily, tossing some 
circulars into a large, staunch waste-paper basket, and 
not offering to shake hands, "this last job of yours is 
a mess. The paper isn’t the same stock as the dummy 
you submitted.” 

Goody fairly purred as he replied: "Would you 
mind repeating that?” 

"I said the paper isn’t the same as that in the 
dummy,” reiterated the other with some irritation. 


90 


SOUND AND FURY 

“I just wanted to make sure I had heard you cor¬ 
rectly/' Goody seized Slazenger by the collar and 
yanked him to his feet, then, in spite of the others 
struggles, held him for a moment by the collar and the 
seat of his trousers and quickly inverted him into the 
waste-paper basket. 

“You'll think twice the next time before accusing us 
of cheating you," he remarked, walking toward the door. 
“If you want me, you know where you can find me." 

He closed the door as the basket upset and Slazenger 
strove to free himself from it. 

When Goody came to his senses he knew that he had 
lost an important customer for his father. The latter, 
however, after a momentary flash of anger that was a 
great deal like Goody's own, took the matter more 
calmly than his son expected. He pointed out to the 
latter that the honour of the company had not neces¬ 
sarily been impugned, that such a mistake might hap¬ 
pen, due to the carelessness of an employee, and that, 
in any event, inverting the maker of such a charge in 
a waste-paper basket was not the way to disprove it 
and certainly did not make it any easier to conduct the 
business. 

“You're right, Dad, you're right," Goody said. “I 
just lose my head sometimes. I guess I'm a natural- 
born fool about such things. Anyway, I'm going out 
to get twice as much business as Slazenger ever gave us 
to make up for this." 

Here he was as good as his promise. The story 
quickly got about town; young Slazenger was dis¬ 
liked and Goody liked and, partly as the result of this, 
91 


SOUND AND FURY 

the young fellow obtained several good orders and the 
promise of business in the future. The elder Guthrie, 
fearful of the effect this might have, was at pains to 
prove to Goody that, though this method of adver¬ 
tising might seem to give immediate returns, it was too 
bizarre and striking to be adopted as a general policy. 
This was unnecessary. Goody had had his lesson. 
Whenever he felt the old anger surging within him, 
he would now think of Slazenger’s legs sticking out of 
the basket and laugh—it was no harder than reducing 
his consumption of alcohol, and Goody was perceiving 
the wisdom of this. 

Merely selling printing, however, meant very little to 
Goody. He was ambitious to make himself valuable to 
his father and to increase the business because he 
wanted to marry. Further than this his interest did not 
go. The transition stage of our popular magazines had 
been reached; they no longer were devoting themselves 
to exposing the rottenness of American political life— 
this was now dubbed muckraking—but they had not 
yet discovered American business as a theme of 
romance. Glorification of business had begun, it is 
true, but it had not yet developed to the point where 
the salesman became the American hero. Goody, 
therefore, received no aid in image-making, and he saw 
his father’s business as it was—a means of getting 
money. It could never represent anything else to him. 

Strangely enough, Goody’s friend, Tom Penny, was 
in a business that also depended upon printers' ink. 
The other, who had gained several years on Goody, had 
been graduated from Yale in the same year when Goody 

92 


SOUND AND FURY 
had quit his college in disgust. Tom was now work¬ 
ing in an advertising agency—he was in the advertising 
game, as he put it—and from his own accounts doing 
remarkably well. Chameleon-like, Tom took his colour 
from those about him. At school and college he had 
associated with radicals and had become a Socialist; in 
the business world, however, Socialism was not fashion¬ 
able, so Tom had permitted it to fade into the back¬ 
ground. He was engaged now—to a girl Goody had 
never seen—and he hoped, if his progress continued, to 
marry within a year. There was something about Tom 
that Goody liked, despite the fact that the two never 
agreed upon anything. It is doubtful if Tom ever was 
perfectly frank with anyone except his old friend. He 
was agreeable and even charming and had made his 
way easily at college and in the business world, but 
there was something about him that was aloof, cynical, 
detached. He found it more and more difficult—or, 
rather, felt no desire—to unbosom himself to other men, 
but there was something wholly refreshing in his meet¬ 
ings with Goody at long intervals and in the letters the 
two exchanged only somewhat more frequently. 

Con had returned to Harpersburg after several years' 
study of art in New York. Evidently she had aban¬ 
doned the attempt to squeeze the thin trickle of her 
talent to a richer and fuller stream; the fault lay, not 
in her hand or eye, but in her own emotional barren¬ 
ness. She seldom touched her paints now and devoted 
practically all her time to social work—to the society 
for improving the condition of the poor, to the chil- 
93 


SOUND AND FURY 

dren’s aid organization, to the home for incurables, to 
the association for the outdoor treatment of the tuber¬ 
cular—to these and to kindred societies, while what 
spare time she had after these demands had been met 
was given to various war charities, all, very naturally, 
in the Allied cause. 

Con made an excellent social worker. She had the 
first requisite—she was not hampered by any weaken¬ 
ing sympathy. She could decide each case logically 
and on its merits. “It's a question of what is good for 
you and we’re the best judges of that.” Her superiors 
could never heap enough praise upon her. She was 
untiring, systematic, efficient. No detail was too petty 
to escape her notice and, once her attention was fastened 
upon it, she was willing to devote any amount of time 
and trouble in order to bring it to light in all its rami¬ 
fications. She was a very Sherlock Holmes in her 
acuteness in sensing a false link in a story—“It’s quite 
useless to attempt to deceive me, Giuseppe; please save 
your time and mine.” 

Her new responsibilities gave Con a thrilling sense of 
power—something she had not felt in New York. 
There her fellow students had been inclined to take her 
work rather lightly and even to snicker at the rigid 
chaperonage under which she lived in her aunt’s home 
—a chaperonage so strict and so willingly accepted that 
two years in New York had left her without a taste of 
the heady wine that the metropolis has to offer. Now, 
at home and able to control the destinies of human be¬ 
ings—even if only humble Slavs, Italians, and Jews_ 

her sense of her own importance was gratefully re- 

94 


SOUND AND FURY 
vived. It was very fine, very satisfying, to be able to 
unite families or even, upon occasion, to separate them, 
to order this one here and another one there, to be ap¬ 
pealed to by men and women and children as the final 
arbitress of their destiny. Trusted with such author¬ 
ity, it would have been betrayal to have shown any 
unworthy weakness. ‘The bread of charity is bitter/” 
one old Irishman had complained and she had not 
lacked for an answer: “Yes, Pat, but the more bitter 
it is, the sooner you’ll learn to do without it.” (In¬ 
cidentally, Con disliked the Irish very much. In some 
obscure way she blamed them for the rift between the 
Church of England and Rome.) 

But the most satisfying feature of her charitable 
work was that Con could see that her power would 
eventually extend to other fields. Women could now 
vote in her State, and her mother, leaving to the daugh¬ 
ter the details of her philanthropic enterprises, was 
engaged in erecting upon this basis what amounted 
to a political machine. More and more it became 
evident that the endorsement of the allied welfare or¬ 
ganizations of Harpersburg and of the State would be 
a political prize worth any politician’s endeavour— 
could even be transformed into a political club to wrest 
from unwilling Governor and Legislature appropria¬ 
tions for new buildings and modern equipment and 
statutes conferring additional power upon semi-private 
organizations. 

Con’s mother now made almost monthly trips to the 
State capital to confer with the Governor and important 
legislators. More and more she was recognized as a 

95 


SOUND AND FURY 

definite political force, influencing the conservative in¬ 
dependent vote that believed with such fervour in the 
fashionable game of ameliorating the conditions brought 
about by poverty, while shrinking with such dread from 
any suggestion for an abolition of the direct cause of 
crime and misery and disease. Con did not recognize 
the fact that it was upon these three pillars that her 
mother was erecting her kingdom, but she did see that 
in time she herself would be called upon to rule it. 

Goody, permitted to follow his own inclinations, 
would have paid little attention to this sickly cult of 
unhappiness; his interest was in the healthy, the sane, 
the normal. But it was impossible for him to ignore 
Con’s almost fanatical fervour. It was impossible to 
believe that she could be wholly mistaken and that all 
her generous activity was expended to no purpose. She 
had studied these things; she knew more about them 
than he did. She had such a good heart. It was so 
fine of her to work so unselfishly for others. That new 
home for idiot children—it must be a very wonderful 
thing, though if left to himself, he might very well 
have smashed out their brains to rid the world of them 
and them of the world. 

But Con was not satisfied merely to have Goody’s 
approval; he himself must do something to demonstrate 
that he was touched by the new spirit abroad in the 
world. Goody had no love of idiot children, less of 
sickly old men and women, still less of whining, tricky 
paupers. Finally Con found work that seemed ideal 
for him. He was to lead a class of boys at the settle- 

96 


SOUND AND FURY 
ment house once a week. One night a week was little 
enough for him to give, she reminded him. 

With a minimum of ceremony Goody was installed 
in his new position. He liked the boys well enough; 
for the most part they were extraordinarily decent, and 
he never thought of the fact that ten years ago they 
were exactly the fellows he had been fighting, half a 
dozen or a dozen to one. But he seemed to have little 
to give them. He talked to them about sportsmanship 
and fair play, but, though he believed in these things, 
he couldn’t find the right words in which to put his 
ideas. It seemed so forced and artificial. Perhaps he 
felt that these lads could well demand at least a mini¬ 
mum of fair play from society before they were asked 
to give any in return. Certainly he seemed a conceited 
ass when he lectured them. Sometimes, when he heard 
himself talk, it was hard to keep from breaking off 
and asking the boys: “This is damned rot, isn’t it?” 

Goody was hard’y more successful in other phases 
of nis work. He arranged debates for the boys, but 
debates had always bored him in school and these 
weren’t any better. The whole procedure had always 
reminded him strongly of the methods of a shyster 
lawyer—thinking up arguments in favour of a cause 
in which you didn’t believe or in which, worse still, you 
took no interest whatsoever. That was about what 
Tom Penny had to do, but Tom at least was getting 
a living out of it and would soon be able to marry. 

Goody also tried to teach the boys boxing, but he 
was far from an expert in the art himself, depending, 
97 


SOUND AND FURY 

as he always had, upon mere courage and ferocity. 
Indeed, some of the boys knew more about it than he; 
one of them was a professional pugilist and regularly 
appeared in the preliminary bouts on Saturday night 
at the Harpersburg Sporting-Club. However, the af¬ 
fection of the boys for Goody was undeniable and, with 
the lads on one side of him and Con on the other, Goody 
went through with the job. 

As a fiancee Con left much to be desired. There had 
never been a formal proposal and acceptance; Goody 
had always assumed that he would marry her and at 
length the girl, disappointed in her quest of a career in 
the world of art, had acquiesced in the idea. Her par¬ 
ents had not the slightest objection to the engagement 
because it was understood that the marriage would not 
take place until Goody was earning at least five thou¬ 
sand dollars a year. So Con let him kiss her and 
usually kissed him in return. But she shared none of 
Goody’s impatience for marriage. 

The motor age had not yet descended upon Harpers¬ 
burg, but Goody’s father had bought a car—a rather 
good one—and to-night Goody had called for Con at 
the offices of the League for Feeble-minded Children 
and was driving her home. 

“Wouldn’t this be wonderful,” he asked her, “if we 
were going to our own home—to a place of our very 
own ?” 

“Of course,” she answered simply. 

“You don't seem very excited about it.” 

“Why, you know I want to marry you, Goody, but 

98 


SOUND AND FURY 
this is very nice, isn't it? What more do you want?" 

What more? What could a young man, a gentle¬ 
man, in the City of Harpersburg, in the year 1914, 
reply to that? What more? Should he tell her that 
he craved the utmost intimacies of sex—and children? 
But Con, though she could discuss without a tremor 
the problem of illegitimate offspring, drew a sharp line 
between her professional duties and her own life. He 
could not speak of these things to her; he could not 
even hint at the vast forces that were stirring within 
him. He could only look at her and wonder. 

A truck cut across Goody’s path. He had to jam 
on the brakes and this stalled the car. He got out and 
cranked it vigorously. 

Binding him to Con were the iron links of habit. He 
had always wanted to marry her. For him to have 
reread her and to have decided any time within the past 
ten years that he did not want to marry her would have 
been a confession of weakness, an acceptance of defeat. 
Now there was no way except ahead. He never con¬ 
sidered any other. Not only would doubt have been 
treason to Con as well as to himself, but it never oc¬ 
curred to him that he was anything except rapturously 
in love with her. He had always wanted to marry her. 
He would marry her. His choice and his desire and he 
himself were one—so far as he had any intimation. 

Now, to bind him still more tightly to Con, to make 
his decision irrevocable, came a tragic event. His 
mother, returning in the automobile from downtown, 
had been caught in a sudden shower. At a corner the 
99 


SOUND AND FURY 

Negro chauffeur put on the brakes too suddenly, the 
car skidded, struck the curb, and overturned. Both 
Mrs. Guthrie and the chauffeur were killed instantly. 

Goody already had identified Con with his mother, 
and the special sanctity that death conferred upon the 
latter extended to Con as well. He could not look with 
coldly impartial eye upon his mother, for death had 
removed her from him, and in the same way Con was 
effectively elevated above criticism or doubt. 

To Goody death was death. It was not the begin¬ 
ning of a new life, it was not the judgment of God, it 
was not the passing of the soul to immortality—it was 
just death and nothing more. In funerals and in the 
trappings and ceremonials which mankind has devised 
to hide the essential fact that the individual life has 
for ever ceased, he could take no interest. He was 
profoundly affected by his mother's death, but he did 
not suspect that she remained with him in the person 
of Con. By some miraculous process the two idolets 
had been merged into one. Only that one remained 
to whisper in his ear, but she spoke with the authority 
of both. 

The effect upon Goody's father was hardly less sur¬ 
prising. He seemed liberated from some force that had 
held him in check. Six months after his wife's death 
he was in the thick of public affairs, self-confident, de¬ 
termined, resourceful. He had always taken an in¬ 
terest in politics; now he was coming to the fore. The 
State was almost evenly divided between the two 
parties, and both political machines had completely 
disgusted the voters. Guthrie was looked upon as a 

100 


SOUND AND FURY 
coming man. It might be a master-stroke of the Re¬ 
publicans to nominate him for some high office and 
thus make an appeal to the “better element/’ the “wel¬ 
fare machine/’ and the former Bull Moosers, while at 
the same time holding the orthodox party vote in line. 
Nomination of Guthrie would be an effective means of 
demonstrating to the voters that the G. O. P. in the 
State had realized the error of its ways. Who would 
say that the Governorship was beyond his reach? 

McQuillen, the present Governor, was a Republican. 
He had a bad record, in that he had been a little less 
than cautious in his dealings with the corporations, and 
particularly with the railroads. He would make an 
effort to be renominated, but it was extremely doubtful 
whether he could succeed. If he failed, the race would 
be open to anyone, and a dark horse like Guthrie, with 
no political record that could be used by his foes as a 
target and no former affiliations with the State machine, 
would stand as good a chance as anyone. In the last 
analysis the choice would rest with half a dozen bosses, 
and they might well conclude that their chances would 
be a little better with Guthrie than with anyone else, 
nor did they have any hostility to Goody’s father, 
despite his denunciations of machine rule, for they 
knew that he was a good party man and would “play 
fair” in the matter of appointments and the other de¬ 
tails of practical politics. 

Goody was immensely amused and at the same time 
pleased by his father’s entry into public life. Each 
morning he would mark any references in the papers 
to the older man and lay them at his place at the break- 
101 


SOUND AND FURY 

fast table. He took the whole affair with a sense of 
humour, however, and sometimes his thrusts hurt, as 
for instance when he remarked: 'it's mighty lucky 
for you Mother would never let you give up your pew 
in the church—where would you be without that now?” 
For Guthrie was speaking before so many Men’s Clubs 
and similar church bodies that his adversaries had 
dubbed him the “Y. M. C. A. candidate,” but the name 
proved an enormous advantage. Men were getting 
tired of slick lawyers in politics and the picture pre¬ 
sented to them of this simple, upright business man won 
adherents in all parts of the State. 

Goody took his vacation early that year, not only 
because he wanted to be on hand to give his father all 
possible aid during the pre-nomination campaign, but 
also because the other would be so busy with politics 
that it would be necessary for the young man to be at 
the printing-plant in order to make certain that the 
source of the family income did not go to ruin. Goody 
was now thoroughly responsible and sober in business 
matters; his father consulted him on all important 
questions. He was proving himself at least as good 
an executive as his father and it was evident that his 
salary would soon justify him in marrying. 

For his vacation Goody chose Silver Lake, where 
he had often spent weeks with his parents. He had 
never been there so early in the season, however, and 
the first few days he found the resort rather dull. Most 
of the guests at the hotel were middle-aged or old, there 

102 


SOUND AND FURY 
to take advantage of the mineral springs. The few 
girls were stupid, unattractive things, and Goody paid 
no attention to them. He spent hours canoeing alone 
on the lake, but he foresaw that two weeks of this would 
prove intolerable. 

Just at the moment, however, when he was seriously 
considering an early return to Harpersburg, his mo¬ 
notony was relieved. He met the Carpenters, who 
lived not at the hotel but in a little cottage about a 
mile down the lake. Carpenter was a tennis profes¬ 
sional, the only one Goody had ever known, who ap¬ 
parently intended to make a living during the summer 
by giving lessons in that sport to the hotel guests. 
This would doubtless be a slender source of income, but 
Carpenter had no additional resources unless one 
counted the poker game in which he played every night 
at the hotel. 

Goody was forbidden to play tennis, but he seldom 
troubled himself about his physician's instructions. 
Despite the fact that Carpenter must have been more 
than forty years old, the younger man had no chance 
against him whatever. Verging on stoutness, puffing 
after the first few strokes, Carpenter handled Goody on 
the court as though the other were a child. The pro¬ 
fessional was able to sense exactly where his opponent 
was going to place the ball and he never failed to be 
ready for it—to return it with a smash that Goody 
could not handle. Carpenter was more than six feet 
tall and when he hit the ball he put every ounce of 
flesh and muscle into the stroke; though he could not 
103 


SOUND AND FURY 

move about with any agility, his eye had not lost its 
keenness and from any part of the court he could “kill” 
an overhead ball with astonishing accuracy. 

There was something offensive and racy about Car¬ 
penter, but with it all there was a touch of pathos; the 
colours in his scarfs were too vivid but most of them 
were frayed. His speech was reminiscent of Broadway 
—there were allusions to Considine and Honest Jim 
Kelly and even Canfield—but Silver Lake was a long 
way from Forty-second Street. Goody wondered what 
odd combination of circumstances had cast this 
gross and crudely appealing product of the metropolis, 
with his knowledge of tennis and poker, upon the shores 
of Silver Lake. 

It was not Carpenter, however, but his wife that most 
interested Goody. Mrs. Carpenter was only four or 
five years older than he. She was undeniably pretty, 
but it was the fact that she seldom spoke that had first 
impressed Goody—he had never met any except voluble 
women, and he had come to believe that all of them 
talked too much. Mrs. Carpenter was of medium 
height and a trifle inclined to plumpness; one might 
even have said that there was something of the ma¬ 
ternal about her, though she had no children. Her 
hair was light brown and her big eyes a greyish blue— 
they served her in lieu of words. When he first saw 
them Goody did not know what to read in them; later 
he was to see in them disappointment, resignation, and 
deep, abiding courage. 

Goody was beyond the age when a boy falls in love 
with a school-teacher; it was, therefore, something of 

104 


SOUND AND FURY 
an achievement for Mrs. Carpenter to succeed in cap¬ 
turing his interest. There was nothing crude or inex¬ 
pert in her technique; Goody maintained to the end the 
illusion that it was he who was pursuing her. In a 
score of different ways she mutely appealed to him and 
bewailed her lot, and he exclaimed to her, with the air 
of a man who has made a discovery and who is gently 
forcing a confidence: “You're not happy!" 

And confidences followed, slow, reluctant, abashed 
on her part. Goody had never lived by tags and labels 
and he had no more difficulty in recognizing in the wife 
of the tennis and poker professional the captive prin¬ 
cess than a knight of old experienced in piercing the 
spell that had transformed her into a hideous scold. 
Was she Carpenter's wife? Well, so it might appear, 
but she was also a glorious Artemis, brave, uncomplain¬ 
ing, proud, suffering much but with the serenity of her 
soul unclouded, linked to a common mortal but bearing 
aloft, unassailable, the chastity of her spirit. 

For a short, intoxicating week Goody revelled in his 
worship. He lost himself in this beady draught, more 
potent than any he had ever sipped. He demanded 
nothing and received nothing—only the privilege of 
basking in the benignant, enigmatic smile of those grey- 
blue eyes. During that time they were together almost 
constantly. He would paddle down to her home in the 
morning and she would come out to the landing to 
greet him; then in the canoe they would cross to the 
other shore and sit on a rock or in some secluded grove, 
silent or talking of love, honour, and themselves. He 
fell into the habit of holding her hand; it meant noth- 
105 


SOUND AND FURY 

ing, he told himself, but the warm physical contact 
thrilled him as Con’s lips failed to do. This did not 
touch Con; it was above the world, above Harpersburg, 
his family, the printing-shop, idiot children, and the 
rest. Edith and he were on mountain peaks at op¬ 
posite ends of the earth, straining toward each other 
across the immeasurable void that stretched between 
them. Or, changing the picture, they were each borne 
along in rudderless boats by the careless seas of chance; 
for a brief, happy moment their craft had touched but 
the next wave would part them for ever. 

Only the parting was certain. He would look back 
upon these days in years to come and would take fresh 
hope and courage from the memory of the time when 
fortune had permitted him to gaze into the pellucid 
depths of a woman’s soul, frank, honest, unashamed. 
He felt himself enriched, ennobled by her presence, by 
her touch, by the gaze of those wonderful grey-blue 
eyes. When Edith and he were both old—but only 
when they were very old—they might meet again and 
through the beautiful vista of distance and pathos re¬ 
trace once more the realm of their secret. 

Toward Carpenter Goody felt no resentment, only 
pity. It had been his misfortune to defile, so far as 
any mortal could defile, this pure, immortal thing. 
The peasant who bedded his ass before the shrine of 
the Virgin Mary had committed no greater sacrilege 
than he. He would be damned for it, but damned 
coldly, dispassionately. He had aspired too high, but 
his sin had been one of ignorance and chance. In 
short, it was all very noble, all very exalted, all pitched 

106 


SOUND AND FURY 
in a tone of lofty sentiment and sentimentality and in 
exact conformity with the best available models. 

Only the parting was certain, and the parting came 
swiftly, with the crescendo velocity of the onrushing 
locomotive. One day he ventured to hold her hand 
and—it seemed almost the next—he was to leave early 
the following morning. He was paddling her back to 
her home for the last time. She did not speak on the 
journey across the lake, but when she neared her land¬ 
ing she said: "You’re not going back to the hotel for 
dinner. You’ll stay here and I’ll fix dinner for just us.” 

"Just us” meant, of course, that her husband was to 
remain at the hotel. Oh, happy chance! The part¬ 
ing would be postponed and for a brief hour or so he 
could enjoy the illusion of perfect domesticity, Edith 
bending over the clumsy oil stove, the aroma of food, 
the many subtle, intimate suggestions of hominess: for 
one brief hour, and then his rudderless bark would 
carry him out of her world for ever. 

"It’s as if-” Edith stopped for a moment as she 

was putting the chops in the pan, struggled bravely 
with herself, and said no more. She understood. New 
she was humming an air, an old nursery tune. How 
wistful, how appealing she seemed in her plain ging¬ 
ham, how much finer than any of the grand ladies of 
Harpersburg in their silks and satins! Here, indeed, 
was heaven, could one but possess it. Here was flam¬ 
ing happiness and utter peace and contentment, fire and 
balm, rapture and repose. 

Throughout the meal Edith maintained her bravely 
cheerful air, but as night came on and it grew dark she 
107 


SOUND AND FURY 

seemed to lose something of her buoyancy. Gone was 
her gay defiance. She lighted a lamp and looked at 
Goody and he could read the longing in her eyes. 

“You must go so soon,” she said. 

“You’ll forget me quickly enough.” 

The breath of a sigh was her response. 

The plates were left on the table. He offered to help 
her wash them. “There’ll be time enough for such 
things when you are gone,” and she shuddered at the 
prospect of the void that awaited her. Nothing was 
overdone; not a note was stressed too strongly. The 
remains of lamb chops and of fried potatoes were on 
the plain, oilcloth-covered table, but Goody did not 
see these; he beheld Edith against a background of the 
gold and purple colours of romance. 

Now they were seated together upon the unyielding, 
virtuous sofa of the cottage. She faced him and the 
grey-blue eyes met his. 

“Before you go, there’s just one favour I want to ask 
of you. Goody.” 

"‘What is it?” 

“I oughtn’t to ask it.” 

“Nonsense. You’ll make me happy. If there’s any¬ 
thing I can do for you-” 

“But I oughtn’t to ask this.” 

“Please, Edith, please, it would make me so happy 
if I could do anything for you.” 

She was silent for a moment, looking into his eyes. 
Then she dropped hers and said, simply as a child: 
“Kiss me, Goody.” 

Impetuously he lifted her head and kissed her upon 

108 


SOUND AND FURY 
the lips, a long, deep kiss such as Con had never known. 
For a moment she seemed to resist; then she put her 
arms about him and pressed him to her. Strange, in¬ 
articulate sounds, half sighs, half groans, welled within 
her. For minutes they remained in each others arms, 
kissing, exchanging endearments. She ran her hands 
lightly over the back of his head, his arms, his shoul¬ 
ders. He touched her dear cheek. He closed her eyes 
and kissed them. 

“You are always mine. No matter what happens, 
you are always mine,” she repeated. 

He could not tire of kissing her. “Will you never 
have enough?” she asked him and playfully refused her 
lips—then gave them hotiy, passionately, the next 
moment. 

A door opened. They both sprang to their feet. 
Goody found himself facing an automatic held by 
Carpenter. 

“So this is what you do when Fm away?” he sneered. 
“How long has this been going on?” 

“Your wife is innocent—absolutely innocent,” de¬ 
clared Goody, true to his code. “Fm to blame. What 
are you going to do?” 

“Fve a good mind to kill you, you young pup.” 

“Kill and be damned,” remarked Goody coldly, and 
he meant it. He would have suffered a great deal more 
than death rather than quail before the gross thing in 
the doorway. 

“No, don't shoot,” cried the woman, kneeling at her 
husband's feet—and for once she overplayed her part. 
“I’ll confess everything, but don't hurt a hair of his 
109 


SOUND AND FURY 

head. I couldn’t help loving him. He was always af¬ 
ter me—pursuing me—and I was weak—I gave in-” 

Goody listened stupefied. He could have been no 
more surprised if those words had issued from the oil 
stove or from one of the faded photographs on the wall. 

“So that’s how it was?” Carpenter advanced to¬ 
ward Goody, keeping the pistol pointed at him. “I 
may not kill you after all, but I am going to make you 
pay for this.” 

Goody said nothing. The whole game was display¬ 
ing itself in front of him. He felt that he had never 
hated before. 

“I’m going to make you pay for this. What do you 
say to that?” 

Goody tossed a dime upon the floor. The gesture 
was eloquent. He still faced the automatic. 

Carpenter edged nearer him and laughed nastily. 
“You’ll sing a different tune before I’m done with you. 
It’s worth a thousand dollars to you to hush this thing 
up. If I don’t get the money, I’ll bring suit and fix 
you so no decent man or woman will speak to you.” 

In reply Goody knocked the pistol from Carpenter’s 
hand. The woman screamed and in another moment 
the two men were struggling for the weapon. She ran 
forward to snatch it. Goody flung her back as he 
shook himself free from his bulky opponent, then 
planted his fist in the other’s stomach. In another in¬ 
stant the pistol was in his pocket. 

“Now stand up and fight,” he told Carpenter. “I’m 
not through with you by a damned sight.” 

The other was still puffing from the blow. “I’ll 


110 


SOUND AND FURY 
bring suit—I'll ruin you!” he panted. “I won’t fight 
you. You’ve broken up my home and I’ll ruin you. 
It won’t do any good for you to fight me. Win or lose, 
I’ll ruin you.” 

“You’ll change your mind,” Goody assured him 
coldly. “When I get through with you, you won’t be 
ready to face me again in a courtroom or any place else. 
At the sound of the name Guthrie, you’ll crawl on your 
belly like a dog.” 

“Damn you!” Carpenter threw a paper-weight that 
struck him on the chest. It hurt him, but did not stag¬ 
ger him. He flew at the older man, striking with all his 
force. He received a blow on the ear, another in the 
eye, but only tore in more madly. In a moment Car¬ 
penter was on the floor. 

“Get up!” commanded Goody, and when the other 
hesitated he kicked him in the chest. “I said get up!” 

Three times he knocked Carpenter down, and three 
times he made him rise to receive another beating. 
The man’s face no longer seemed human. Blood 
streamed from his nose and mouth. His eyes were lost 
in discoloured puffs. The fourth time Carpenter went 
down, Goody let him remain on the floor. 

“This is only a taste of what you’ll get if you cause 
me any more trouble. If I ever hear from you again, 
your life won’t be worth a good God damn. I’ll tear 
you out of a regiment of soldiers and beat you within 
an inch of your life. My God, I don’t know why I 
don’t kill you now.” 

Carpenter did not answer. Goody did not know 
whether or not he had heard, and did not care. 

Ill 


SOUND AND FURY 

He looked back when he reached the door. Carpen¬ 
ter still lay upon the floor. “Remember,” Goody told 
him, “your one chance to live is not to annoy me again.” 

Now he saw the woman. She shifted her gaze and 
looked sullenly, silently, away from him and away from 
her husband. Goody longed to think of something 
crushing to say, crushing yet not vulgar. But his sense 
of the dramatic had deserted him. As long as he was 
fighting, he had not realized how badly she had hurt 
him. Now he knew. He left the cottage, slamming 
the door behind him. 

His own eye was discoloured and he bore other traces 
of the fight. He sat in the woods, smoking his pipe 
and softly cursing, until he was sure he could get to his 
room without being seen. For a few moments he 
tossed in bed, but soon he slept soundly and it was an 
effort to rise when he was called early the next morning. 

Back in Harpersburg within two hours, he went 
mechanically about his work, trying to forget the sore 
spot within him. His father was humorous on the sub¬ 
ject of the black eye; it was the first one that Goody 
had displayed in years. The young fellow offered no 
explanation. What he had learned he would keep to 
himself. 

When Goody went out for lunch that noon he bought 
a paper, and, for probably the first time in his life, 
felt thoroughly, unreservedly, whole-heartedly afraid. 
There, on the first page, was the account of Carpenter's 
death, a grotesquely perverted and confused account, 

112 


SOUND AND FURY 
but it was plain that Carpenter was dead and Goody 
knew who had killed him. 

For a few moments his panic lasted; then he under¬ 
stood what he had to do and felt better. Action al¬ 
ways served him as the best of tonics. He knew that 
he could catch a train for Silver Lake and be there 
again that afternoon. He called up the plant and 
found his father still there. 

'Top/' he said, "take this steady. Don't jump. I 
have to go back to Silver Lake right away." 

^What’s the matter?" 

"I killed a man." 

"God Almighty!" 

"I didn’t know it till I read the Post. Get one and 
you’ll see. Fellow by the name of Carpenter. 1 can 
just catch the 12:42.” 

"This is a hell of a way to break the news." 

"I’m sorry, Pop, but I didn’t know anything about it 
till a minute ago. I thought I’d just given him a good 
beating." 

"Don’t go off at half-cock. I’ll get Sid Haber and 
we’ll go down with you.” 

"Sid can’t make this train. Let him take the four 
o’clock if he wants to. You’d better not come—I don’t 
want you mixed up in this." 

"Hell, I’ll come all right and bring Sid with me." 

"Don’t do it, Pop. I can’t stay and argue with you, 
because I have to catch that train." 

Seated in the smoker of the accommodation train, 
Goody read through the newspaper account again. 
113 


SOUND AND FURY 

Edith had evidently lied up and down. She said that 
she had found the body when she returned home at 
night—that she had no idea who the murderer was. 
The sheriff's theory was robbery, and a search was be¬ 
ing conducted for a, Negro who had been in that vicin¬ 
ity, “acting suspiciously." The paper also said that 
none of the hurts on Carpenter’s head or body had been 
sufficient to result in his death, according to the doctor 
who examined the body, and that the direct cause of 
his death had probably been heart-failure. 

Rereading the article, Goody felt much encouraged. 
He had no desire to play a martyr’s role—certainly not 
under such circumstances as these. He saw no reason 
why he should contradict the woman’s story, though he 
felt that in concocting it she had been influenced by no 
desire to shield him. He would simply tell of being 
alone with Carpenter in the cottage, of quarrelling with 
him about a game of cards, of Carpenter drawing a 
pistol—Goody still had the weapon in his own pocket— 
and of the fight. For killing the man he felt not the 
slightest compunction; the fellow was a scoundrel and 
had deserved what he received. It was fortunate that 
one could escape the consequences so easily. 

Strangely enough, Goody’s tale was accepted by the 
authorities. The sheriff, when the young man ap¬ 
peared before him and told the story, did not even put 
him under arrest, simply requesting his promise not to 
leave the county until the investigation had been com¬ 
pleted. Goody’s voluntary return when he was not 
under direct suspicion influenced official and private 
opinion in his favour. The arrival of his father and 

114 


SOUND AND FURY 
Sid Haber, one of the most prominent lawyers of Har- 
persburg, together with the political influence which 
they immediately brought to bear, practically closed 
the case. Justice was an extremely simple matter in 
that State, a straight-forward, direct arrangement be¬ 
tween friends and equals. Carpenter was an alien un¬ 
known from the East. Goody was practically one of 
them; his father was an influential citizen of the State 
and his attorney made and unmade judges. No one 
may actually have believed Goody’s story, but that 
was an incidental matter. The main point was that 
there was no sense in making trouble for such a fine 
young fellow when nobody really cared about the de¬ 
ceased. The verdict of the coroner’s jury may not 
have been in accordance with Coke and Blackstone but 
it satisfied the community; it found that Goody had 
struck Carpenter in self-defence and that the other had 
died as the result of a weak heart. There was no in¬ 
dictment and no talk of one. 

Somewhat sooner than he had planned, Goody saw 
Edith once more. It was not across the vista of dis¬ 
tance and pathos but across the dingy courtroom in 
which the coroner held his hearing. She was dressed 
in black, which served to emphasize her pure, chaste 
beauty. She did not look at Goody and he glanced 
only casually at her. Later he determined to send her 
some money. His grandfather had left him a few thou¬ 
sand dollars—it would have been more had the elder 
Guthrie permitted that gentleman to step inside his 
house. Goody made up his mind to send the woman 
115 


SOUND AND FURY 

two thousand, more than half of his money. His 
father called him a fool but did not actively oppose 
him. 

'Tell her,” Goody said to Haber, whom he entrusted 
with the commission, "that I have absolutely no feel¬ 
ing of any kind toward her. Tell her this is not an 
act of kindness, for I don’t feel kindly toward her. 
Tell her it is blood money pure and simple. I killed 
the man who was supporting her, and I am sending her 
this money, which is just a bit more than he was worth.” 

In one direction the misadventure was to have se¬ 
rious results. Goody’s story might be good enough for 
the honest officialdom of Snodgrass County, but it did 
not completely satisfy the reporters sent down to Sil¬ 
ver Lake by the Harpersburg newspapers. Goody 
knew some of them and they had no particular desire to 
be severe upon him, but still, business was business and, 
above all, politics was politics. It was difficult to print 
anything about the relations between Goody and Mrs. 
Carpenter because nothing touching this matter had 
come out in court and publication of the facts the re¬ 
porters gathered from guests at the hotel and else¬ 
where would have been libelous. 

But there is more than one way to skin a cat. In the 
Harpersburg Tribune there appeared one morning an 
article which described how the authorities were work¬ 
ing on some new facts that related to the Silver Lake 
case and promised that when the entire truth was 
known it would be discovered that a woman had played 
an important part in it. The authorities, it might be 

116 


SOUND AND FURY 
mentioned, were ignorant of any new facts and would 
not have delved into them had any been discovered, 
but the article was sufficient to reveal what was in the 
mind of McClintock, the Tribune s publisher, who had 
a candidate of his own for the Republican Guber¬ 
natorial nomination. That afternoon the elder Guthrie 
issued a statement in which he declared that he was not 
and never had been a candidate for the Republican 
nomination and would not take the nomination if it 
were offered to him. The Tribune thereafter was silent 
on the subject of the Silver Lake case. 

But the political career of Goody’s father was closed. 
It was a severe blow to the man. He seemed to re¬ 
lapse and lost interest in almost everything—even in 
the printing-plant. Goody reproached himself, but he 
could not undo the damage. As it happened, the 
Democrats swept the State that year in the Wilson 
landslide of 1916, and it was evident that even if 
Guthrie had obtained the nomination he almost cer¬ 
tainly would have been defeated. Still, it could not 
absolutely be proved, and at least he would have had 
the interest and excitement of the campaign. Now he 
had hardly anything. He stayed home almost every 
night. 

To Con Goody told the complete story, withholding 
nothing. Of course, she forgave him. Her emotions 
were thin and shallow and she was incapable even of 
jealousy on a scale big enough to transcend mere spite. 
Besides, there was no longer anything of which to be 
jealous. More and more she had veered toward the ex- 
117 


SOUND AND FURY 

treme High Church, and now she was perching so high 
on the Episcopal ladder that she all but touched Cathol¬ 
icism at the top. Goody had admitted his fault; he 
had repented and confessed. That was sufficient. 

But it was not sufficient for Goody. His vanity had 
been doubly wounded. He was embittered both by the 
thought that the woman had only shammed—though 
perhaps not wholly shammed—affection and because he 
had so easily been deceived. It made him for the first 
time distrust his own emotions and reactions. He had 
been fooled so completely that he was resolved never 
again to rely on mere sentiment. 

Instead of warning him against Con by showing him 
what life—even built on a sham and a lie—might hold 
for him, it bound him to her more closely. She became 
the antithesis of Edith and, as such, doubly dear to 
him. 


118 


V 


W HEN war finally came to this country Goody 
welcomed it—pro-Germanism not forgotten 
but merely superseded. 

Nothing, however, more distinguished Goody from the 
yokeldom in which he lived than his manner of accept¬ 
ing war. He was not deceived by the pious phrases of 
the President, nor did the columns of newspaper propa¬ 
ganda affect him in the least. In the past he had 
known how to appraise the stories of German atroci¬ 
ties, and now he was not disturbed in the slightest by 
tales that emanated from newspaper correspondents 
fully as cynical as he. 

“I don’t know whether we are fighting to protect Wall 
Street’s investments in English and French securities 
or not,” Goody told his father after it became apparent 
that war was inevitable, “and, furthermore, I don’t give 
a damn. I do know that the boobs at Washington— 
and they’ve probably been influenced by Wall Street— 
have made a hash of things and got Germany so sore 
at us that there’s no telling what will happen to us if 
we let Germany win.” 

His father made some reply, couched in the terms of 
conventional patriotism, and Goody went on: “In¬ 
sulted? They haven’t insulted me! They’ve insulted 
119 


SOUND AND FURY 

a few numskulls in Washington. That isn’t the point. 
La Follette and his crowd are right in a way. This isn’t 
the people’s war. That’s why they need so much news¬ 
paper propaganda to get anyone angry. But I’m not 
one of the people. I’ll admit I’m not a Wall Street 
banker, either, but the system that makes those bankers 
and gives them so much power has been pretty good to 
me.” 

Goody could see that his father wanted to ask him 
what he would do when war came. He went on: 

“Of course, if there’s war I’ll enlist. I always liked 
a good fight and this one seems on the level. I would 
have gone over a couple of years ago on one side or the 
other if it hadn’t been for wanting to marry Con. This 
is different because it’s my country. I don’t say my 
country right or wrong, for there’s no right or wrong 
about this at all. Germany is fighting for Germany, 
France for France, and so on, and we’ll be fighting for 
ourselves—at least the boys will think they’re fighting 
for themselves, and that almost amounts to the same 
thing. I’d rather fight with the Guthries than the 
Smiths if there was a war between them. When I was 
a boy I fought like hell for the Third Streeters against 
the Second Streeters because I lived on Third Street. 
That’s why I’m going to fight for the United States— 
that and the fun of the thing.” 

The older man said nothing. Goody was his only 
child and, with the boy’s mother dead, there was little 
else on earth in which he took much pleasure. But he 
would not ask Goody to stay. He felt that he was be¬ 
ing very Spartan and heroic. . . . Besides, it would be 

120 


SOUND AND FURY 
no use. In a way, he was very proud of his son. He 
would be even prouder when the boy was in uniform. 

The day after war was declared. Goody enlisted as a 
private in an artillery regiment. Most of his friends 
were endeavouring, by one means or another, to obtain 
commissions. Under other circumstances Goody him¬ 
self would have made the effort and he certainly would 
have managed to exert enough influence to receive an 
appointment to an officers’ training-camp—no one could 
be with him five minutes without realizing that he was 
of the stuff of which officers are made. But something 
of a cloud had rested on Goody since the Silver Lake 
affair. True, he had been exonerated by officialdom, 
but everyone in Harpersburg understood how easily 
those things can be managed. The one fact that stood 
out was that he had killed a man, and it was accom¬ 
panied by ugly rumours linking Goody with that man’s 
wife. The young fellow knew that he was more or less 
under surveillance by unofficial but none the less effi¬ 
cient busybodies, and that there would be criticism if 
he were placed in charge of other men without winning 
that promotion. He had no excessive respect for public 
opinion but he knew that a commission would come to 
him anyway in the natural course of events, so he en¬ 
tered the army as a private. In that way, he told him¬ 
self, he was showing how little he cared. 

As for the commission, hadn’t Napoleon said that 
every soldier carried a marshal’s baton in his knapsack? 
There were no marshals in the United States army, 
but couldn’t he become at least a general, if only a 
brigadier-general? He had a vision of himself at the 
121 


SOUND AND FURY 

head of a regiment of cavalry, sweeping behind the Ger¬ 
man lines, cutting off their communications, compelling 
them to fall back in confusion from Switzerland to the 
Channel. Would not the nation know how to reward 
such heroism? True, he was in the artillery, not the 
cavalry, but that was a detail which could be arranged. 
Goody had read books on the war and newspaper dis¬ 
patches that, pasted end to end, would have reached 
from Harpersburg to France, so he knew that this war 
was not being conducted in precisely that manner. 
Still, there must be room for individual daring and 
initiative. Roland's and Richard Cceur de Lion's had 
once won battles almost unaided. He himself had put a 
dozen Micks to flight. There must be some place in 
the war for him. 

Before Goody could enlist, there was just one little 
matter that had to be arranged. He had not bothered 
about his heart for some time, but he was afraid that 
it would bar him from the army. So he went to see 
Dr. Carruthers. 

"Just listen to the old ticker, will you?" but the re¬ 
quest was unnecessary, because as soon as the physician 
saw him he reached for his stethoscope. 

Goody waited impatiently during the examination. 
It seemed to take longer than usual. When it was 
concluded he asked: "Well?" 

"No change." 

"Do you think an army surgeon will find it out?" 

"Unless he’s in a tremendous hurry." 


122 


SOUND AND FURY 

“Well, I want you to fix me up.” 

“Fix you up ? What do you mean ?” 

“Give me something to take so I can get into the 
army.” 

“Want me to commit a felony, don’t you?” 

“Felony be damned! I want you to do something for 
your country in time of need.” 

Carruthers’ blue eyes laughed but he snapped back: 
“Can’t be done.” 

“I’m depending on you, Doctor.” 

“Tough luck.” 

“I’m serious.” 

“So am I.” 

“Now look here.” Goody became eloquent. “I’m 
not asking you to do anything wrong. It isn’t as 
though I were likely to break down and be a drag on 
my company. I wouldn’t have known about my heart 
if you and Doc Myers at college hadn’t told me. I 
never feel sick, I never even have a headache. As long 
as the heart lasts I’m all right. If it goes I’ll go. I 
can’t be a handicap to the company, because if my 
heart flivvers I’m gone and they can chuck me in a ditch 
and march on.” 

You’re talking nonsense. Leaving aside everything 
else, it wouldn’t be fair to you to let you go, because 
you’d run more risk than the ordinary man—the over¬ 
exertion might be too much for you—probably would 
be.” 

“That’s my chance and I’m willing to take it.” ■ 

“Take it if you please, but not with my help.” 

123 


SOUND AND FURY 

“I want your help because 1 need it. Confound it, 
you don’t think I’d stand here begging you if I didn’t 
need you, do you?” 

This time Carruthers laughed, but he shook his head. 

'There won’t be any extra strain. You know I’ve 
never paid any attention to your advice and I never 
will. I promise that if you don’t help me get into the 
army and if they reject me, I’ll play half a dozen sets 
of tennis a day, two rounds of golf, run a mile-” 

"Oh, dry up.” Dr. Carruthers was writing a pre¬ 
scription for Goody. 

"And you might take an extra dose just about half 
an hour before the examination. I think you’ll come 
out all right. Now good luck to you.” 

Goody wrung the physician’s hand. "Good-bye, 
Doc. Thanks.” 

"Good-bye,” replied the other grimly, "'and be 
damned.” 

Con’s pacifism had not been proof against the head¬ 
lines in the Harpersburg Tribune. With war approach¬ 
ing and Goody certain to enlist, she could see herself 
in an intensely pathetic and appealing picture—her 
eyes turned toward France where her young hero was 
battling against her country’s foes, while she sat 
at home sorrowing and knitting socks for him. 
And there would be other work she could do. The 
war would open a big field for social service. There 
would be soldiers’ families to be cared for. There 
would undoubtedly be more unmarried mothers than 
ever—perhaps even an extra crop of idiot children. 

124 


SOUND AND FURY 
All in all. Con viewed the outlook with utter 
complacency. 

Goody came to see her the April evening before he 
enlisted. They went for a walk together. It would 
not be good-bye, of course, for he would probably have 
many opportunities to see her—he had no idea when 
his regiment would be ordered to leave. But it was, in 
a way, a farewell, for when he saw her again it would 
be in an army uniform and he would no longer be a free 
agent; he would be subject to the command of anyone 
in shoulder straps and ultimately his fate would rest 
with a bureau in Washington that could transfer him 
and thousands of others to France or Russia or the 
West Indies or the Philippines, as it pleased. 

“You know, Con, the old man did a mighty decent 
thing to-day," Goody began when they had left her 
home behind them. “He told me that when I come 
back he's going to take me into partnership—give me 
one-third the profits." 

“How thrilling!" That, in 1917, was an adjective 
which Con somewhat overworked. 

“You know that means we can marry when I get 
back." 

“I know it, dear." 

“Can't you say any more than that?" 

“Why, you big goose, you know I'll be delighted to 
marry you—to be your wife." 

There was a pause. Goody added: “We could even 
marry now, if we wanted to." 

“But how foolish that would be! I don’t think 
there's anything more absurd than the way young 
125 


SOUND AND FURY 

people are rushing into marriage just because there’s 
a war—without thinking of the consequences at all.” 

Goody was twenty-five. Con was twenty-four. He 
said no more on that subject. If Con did not want to 
risk being tied for life to a cripple, he would not urge 
her. 

The months in the training-camp were dreary enough. 
Even though relieved of the most disagreeable features 
of army drudgery—Goody had quickly been made a 
sergeant—the monotony of camp routine, unaccom¬ 
panied by any thrill of danger or adventure, was boring 
enough. Goody had not even the satisfaction of being 
near his home, for soon after he enlisted his regiment 
had been shifted to a camp five hundred miles away, 
so that his short leaves had to be spent among strangers. 
Of course, he made friends quickly and half a dozen 
homes in the near-by city were open to him whenever 
he could get away for dinner or the evening. But it 
was not war, and Goody was bent on having a fling 
in the gigantic conflict. He was learning something 
about modern methods of warfare—learning too slowly 
to suit him—but he still had the idea that there might 
be a chance for him, as he put it, to “get loose with 
the ball.” And, in any event, there would be thrills. 

It was not army discipline which irked Goody, but 
army inactivity. The discipline chafed him less than 
that which he had encountered as a boy in school and 
at home or than that which his college fraternity had 
sought to impose upon him. He had no scruples about 
disobeying orders when he could do so without detec- 

126 


SOUND AND FURY 
tion, but he took the responsibility of being sergeant 
half seriously and was, in the main, a good soldier. 
One member of the military police, it is true, went to 
the hospital as the result of an encounter with Goody, 
but the encounter took place in pitch darkness and the 
identity of the breaker of the nose was never disclosed. 
This was merely a relapse from his military self; Goody 
seldom violated camp discipline, because, on the whole, 
it was such discipline as he himself would have devised. 
It was the discipline established by superiors for in¬ 
feriors—men inferior in birth, education, intelligence, 
and courage. That is the philosophy on which all mili¬ 
tary discipline is erected and in important respects it 
coincided with Goody's own. The only flaw in the 
scheme was that Goody was not yet an officer, but he 
was certain time would remedy that. 

Enlisting the day after war was declared, Goody es¬ 
caped the soul-destroying days of civilian life, the petty 
persecutions of Germans and pacifists, the endless 
heresy hunts and heresy trials, the yelping and baying 
of courageous stay-at-homes and professional patriots, 
the bestial examples of mob brutality, the very stench 
and backwater of patriotism. If he had been at home 
and had seen the ugly passions which war brought to 
the surface in those who were exposing themselves to 
the least danger, his sense of decency and chivalry 
might have overcome his love of adventure; he might 
have washed his hands of the whole filthy affair. But 
he was spared the worst of this. He seldom read the 
papers now, except to glance at the official communi¬ 
ques, and the journals that fell into his hands were not 
127 


SOUND AND FURY 

the ones that would have given him any picture of war¬ 
time America. 

Goody’s unit led a peripatetic existence during those 
first months of the war when the conflict was to all 
intents a personal quarrel between President Wilson 
and Colonel House on one hand and the Central Em¬ 
pires on the other—before Republican politicians and 
Lloyd George’s propaganda had built a backfire that 
impelled Washington into more energetic action. At 
their first camp, in the extreme Southern part of the 
country. Goody’s outfit remained three months, but 
thereafter hardly a month passed that they were not 
transferred from one camp to another. Whenever a 
shift had to be made, it seemed that the finger of fate 
pointed to Goody’s unit. In this way those energetic 
young Americans had a chance to see a great deal of 
their native land, but their training was not speeded 
by the fact that they were taught by various instructors 
and under widely differing methods. Even their arms 
were changed; Goody had no sooner learned to shoot 
fairly straight with a revolver then he was given an 
automatic and he had to begin anew, almost as a novice. 
He was having a tiny peep at the under side of war, 
just as Kropotkin, at the funeral of the Dowager Em¬ 
press, was so close to the altar that he was able to 
perceive that what seemed to the multitude gorgeous 
ermine was nothing but tufts of cotton sewed on wool. 
On a bigger scale the meanderings of Goody and his 
comrades were repeated a thousandfold, and every mis¬ 
take made in their training had its counterpart a hun- 

128 


SOUND AND FURY 
dred times as glaring; it was a supreme example of 
how a democracy fights when its soul has not been 
awakened, just as France in 1793 demonstrated what 
a nation in arms can accomplish. 

Through it all, however, Goody never lost hope. He 
saw his dream of sailing for France that summer fade 
into the distance, but the armies were deadlocked—the 
war would last until he got there. He was not yet an 
officer, but that too would come. So certain and un¬ 
wavering was his confidence that when, one morning 
in October, he was summoned to appear before his cap¬ 
tain he did not show the least surprise at the latter's 
statement: 

“I can send three men to the French school of fire 
at Saumur. It’s the chance of a lifetime. You strike 
me, Guthrie, as being good material for an officer"—in¬ 
sufferable condescension, yet that could pass—“but you 
don’t know trigonometry. I don’t see how I can send 
you there without trigonometry." 

Goody thought rapidly. “I won’t get there for two 
weeks, will I?" 

“No," the captain replied. 

“Then send me. I know a little trig now"—he had 
studied it at either school or college; he could not re¬ 
member which, nor even what it was about—“and I’ll 
polish up on it in that two weeks. I won’t do a thing 
else on the trip across. Cross my heart, I’ll be up on 
the thing when I get there." 

The captain hesitated, but not for long. Perhaps he 
had merely been trying out Goody; he may have known 
that at Saumur Goody would have no more use for 
129 


SOUND AND FURY 

trigonometry than he would have for Greek. Or it 
may have been that Goody’s earnestness decided him, 
just as it had Dr. Carruthers. 

“All right/’ the captain replied. ‘Til send in your 
name. Now it’s up to you to make good on your 
promise.” 

That night Goody bought a trigonometry text-book. 
He hardly came up for air from that time until he 
reached Saumur. He buried himself in sines and 
cosines, in tangents and cotangents. He lived and 
breathed trigonometry. His eyes ached, his head 
whirled, he cursed himself for having whiled away his 
time at college. He was finally able to recall the tall, 
bespectacled young man who had tried to drill trig¬ 
onometry into him there, but Goody saw him now as a 
very angel from heaven, vainly offering salvation and 
bliss to a surly, purblind mortal. 

It would have taken, however, more than trigonom¬ 
etry and the prospect of cutting a brilliant figure at 
Saumur to keep him from seeing Tom in New York. 
Tom had been married almost a year; he was safe from 
the draft for the immediate present. 

“I guess they’ll get to me quickly enough,” he said 
with no attempt to appear cheerful over the prospect. 

“You don’t look to me like good cannon-food,” Goody 
assured him, and certainly it was hard to imagine the 
lean, cadaverous young man in khaki. 

“I don’t mind saying that I’m glad of it,” Tom told 
him. “It doesn’t sound very fine, does it?” 

“Why not? It’s not your war, Tom. You don’t 

130 


SOUND AND FURY 
believe in it—why should you monkey with it if you 
don't have to?" 

“I don't believe in it. It’s a crazy piece of business 
all around. Sometimes I think the whole world's gone 
crazy. But I keep asking myself: If Smith and Jones 
and Cohen and O'Reilly have to go into this mad affair, 
which is no more their business than yours, why 
shouldn't you?" 

“Quit bothering about it. They're going because 
they have to. You're not going because you don't have 
to." 

“Why are you going?" 

“For the fun, the adventure. Besides, I'm tired of 
Harpersburg—since that little matter at Silver Lake 
things have been a bit different down there, you know. 
What the place needs is a good long rest from me and 
the chance to forget a bit, and I’m going to give it every 
opportunity." 

“Damn Harpersburg!" 

“By all means, if you want to. I never pay much 
attention to it, not even to damn it. All cities are 
filthy, and because Harpersburg is my home it strikes 
me as a little less filthy than others." 

In Tom's apartment Goody met the other's wife. 
Evelyn was a very pretty girl with marvellous black 
eyes and a decisive manner. It was plain that she 
regarded Goody as a sort of youthful indiscretion of her 
husband, committed in the dim days before his eyes 
had been opened to the splendour of the metropolis. 
For Evelyn, America was bounded by the Hudson River 
on the West, and even within the area to which she 
131 


SOUND AND FURY 

restricted herself she moved only in a limited circle 
of persons as opinionated as she—from whom, in fact, 
she obtained the dicta which she put forth so emphati¬ 
cally as her own. As a forlorn hope, she tossed a few 
questions at Goody which he muffed ingloriously; then 
it was plain that she put him down as a total loss. She 
let the conversation drift during dinner, intervening 
now and then more as a matter of discipline than any¬ 
thing else. 

After dinner she excused herself to Goody. “You 
two have so much to talk about and I know I’d just 
be in the way/' 

He gallantly reassured her. 

“But I have a ticket to a concert that 1 don’t want 
to miss. I’m sure you’ll be here when I get back, so 
I won’t say good-bye.” 

When she was gone, Goody turned helplessly to 
Tom. “Aren’t you afraid to let your wife go around 
alone like that?” 

“There are two things wrong with your question,” 
the other told him. 

“What are they?” 

“The naive assumption that I ‘let’ my wife do things 
and the equally foolish idea that a civilized woman in 
New York isn’t as free as a man—to go out at night 
or do anything else she pleases.” 

“Pray excuse a hayseed,” murmured Goody, and they 
both laughed. 

For a while they discussed the war, Clemenceau, poli¬ 
tics—but it was dull, constrained. Then they came 
back to the old days in Harpersburg and reviewed their 

132 


SOUND AND FURY 
golden boyhood together—golden in the soft, reflected 
light of memories. The barn where they had played, 
the scarlet-fever scare they had perpetrated, their fights, 
their old friends, their feuds, their plans, their sweet¬ 
hearts. All these recollections they had in common, 
these and a thousand more. It was a living link bind¬ 
ing together the two brotherless beings. 

Suddenly Goody started. “It’s eleven—I’ll be A. 
W. O. L. if I’m not back in Hoboken by twelve. Gosh, 
how the time flew! Where’s Evelyn?” 

“She ought to be home now. I guess she met some¬ 
one at the concert who took her to a restaurant.” 

Again Goody felt a mere child from the hinterland. 
“Tell her good-bye for me,” he said, “and good-bye 
yourself, old boy. I didn’t tell you—I’m not supposed 
to—but we sail to-morrow.” 

Tom grasped him by both arms. 

“Good luck.” He hesitated. “God, Goody, but I 
wish you were staying here. I wish I’d seen more of 
you lately.” 

“We’ll get together oftener when I come back. 
Good-bye.” He returned Tom’s pressure. “I have to 
hurry.” 

“Good-bye. If there’s a God, I hope He’s with you.” 
There was no jest in the tone. 

On the way to Hoboken, Goody thought about Tom. 
Unanalytical though he was, Goody understood the 
real meaning of Tom’s earlier outburst about wanting 
to share the hazard of war with the Cohens and the 
O’Reillys. It had been a mere rhetorical flight, pro¬ 
voked by the sight of Goody in uniform. In a way, 
133 


SOUND AND FURY 

Tom was weak and paltering—neither flesh nor fowl— 
neither militant nor pacifist. He took the path of least 
resistance. But, for all that, there was a bond between 
the two—Goody felt something for Tom that he did 
not feel for any other man. He could never go back on 
Tom, and Tom, for all his indecisiveness, could never 
go back on him. You don’t choose your father or 
mother, and you don’t choose a friend like Tom. He 
just is, and that is all. 

Goody crossed on the Leviathan with several score 
other boys bound for the French school of fire, along 
with innumerable units of mere cannon-fodder. He 
was sick the first day out; after that he compelled him¬ 
self to dress and clamber out on deck, where he buried 
himself in Wentworth’s Trigonometry. But the mental 
tortures he suffered then were nothing compared to his 
anger and chagrin when he arrived at Saumur and 
found, in the first few days of training, that all his 
study had been wasted—that the French were inter¬ 
ested in teaching him what methods to use and how to 
use them, rather than in explaining the background of 
mathematics which made it possible to arrive at them. 
From that time on, Goody, though retaining his love 
of army life and not altering his conception of disci¬ 
pline, lost all respect for his military superiors. He 
classed them with physicians, schoolmasters, clergy¬ 
men, and newspaper editors—in short, with all those 
who prescribe codes of conduct for others to follow. 

With the French he got along famously. He had 
never been pro-French and consequently had no illu- 

134 


SOUND AND FURY 
sions to live down. He looked upon them as a lively 
race of good fighting men somewhat inclined to overdo 
mere politeness—again the Alphonse and Gaston tradi¬ 
tion—and though it was something of a shock to learn 
that middle-aged men who had seen almost four years on 
the fighting-line did not look upon war with the same 
enthusiasm as he, it did not affect his opinion of French¬ 
men. Of French women he saw few examples except 
those who belonged to the demi-monde. 

The young man did not look upon his association 
with these as in any sense a relapse. He had cut him¬ 
self loose from their American sisters for definite reasons 
of his own. In large part these reasons no longer 
operated. He was soon to go into battle; he did not 
know whether or not he would return alive. The ques¬ 
tion did not worry him in the least, but, if he were to 
live only a few months more—and, for all he knew, his 
span might not be so long—he was determined to get all 
the pleasure possible out of the days that were left. 

To the virtues, albeit of a distinct type, of these 
French ladies of pleasure, as contrasted with the blowzy 
women he had encountered in Harpersburg and other 
American cities. Goody was ready to pay enthusiastic 
tribute. He was willing to admit that the French 
understood such matters much better than his country¬ 
women. 

“It's all right to be patriotic/' he told a fellow stu¬ 
dent, “but you have to admit these Frenchwomen have 
made it into a fine art. Why, I tell you it's only in 
its infancy back home/' 

That he should attempt to conceal his delight in 

135 


SOUND AND FURY 

such matters never occurred to Goody. With him it 
was as normal and natural a thing as eating or drink¬ 
ing. For his own good reasons he had eliminated, so 
far as any human being can eliminate, sex from his 
life for five years, but during that time he had never 
attempted to impose his views on anyone else; he had 
never posed as an example of righteousness and, indeed, 
it never occurred to him that there was anything par¬ 
ticularly righteous in what he was doing. 

It was from these ladies, and particularly from one 
Annette, that Goody attained a working knowledge of 
the French language. It is true that he had studied 
French for three years in school and for another year 
in college, but precisely for that reason he was unable 
to speak a word of it when he landed, though at one 
time he had obtained a nodding acquaintance with every 
irregular verb. 

Not even Annette, however, did Goody regard as any¬ 
thing save an instrument of pleasure. He had had a 
dip into the sea of sentiment at Silver Lake and had 
not found the ducking enjoyable. He was fond of 
Annette, she was fond of him, but he understood defi¬ 
nitely what each meant to the other and what were the 
bonds which held them together. 

In due course of time Goody was graduated from the 
artillery school. It was the first time he had ever 
ranked high in any form of study. He was commis¬ 
sioned now as second lieutenant in artillery, but unlike 
so many of his class, he was not inclined to strut. He 
had wanted to be an officer, he was an officer, he should 

136 


SOUND AND FURY 
have been an officer before this, but, through some 
singular mischance, the promotion had been delayed. 
He was merely entering upon what was rightly his 
—the event was nothing to get excited about. Be¬ 
sides, second lieutenants were common enough. All he 
wanted now was to get to the front. In a few days 
he received his chance. 

All along the line from Switzerland to the sea— 
and on both sides of that line—there must have been 
innumerable Goodys, innumerable men to whom fight¬ 
ing was life, who found themselves at home in that 
strange, mad environment, who could translate it into 
something like sanity for their fellows, who served to 
remind those about them that the world still held its 
course and that chaos and hell had not taken complete 
possession of this earth. In no other way could those 
two vast masses of men have suffered so long and so 
patiently, have undergone such travails, have so belied 
their common humanity. There had to be Goodys, 
both in the ranks and among the officers, strange throw¬ 
backs of a former age, to hold them to their tasks, to 
make the unendurable seem endurable, to metamor¬ 
phose this vast agglomeration of fire and filth, of lice 
and danger, of physical hardship and mental torture, 
of death and disease and suffering—to change all this 
into something that could at least be tolerated, into 
something recognizable, possessing human values. The 
mouthings of politicians could never have done that; 
even fear itself would not have sufficed. There had 
to be something that could enter into the hearts of men 
137 


SOUND AND FURY 

as well as into their bellies, something that could per¬ 
suade them the world had not gone crazy and they with 
it, something to make them feel: “We’re not all luna¬ 
tics. This is real. There must be a way out.” 

That was Goody’s share in the war—in his battery, in 
his regiment, among all those with whom he came in 
contact. He did not kill a German with his own hand. 
The only ones he saw at arm’s reach were prisoners. 
Not that he was never in danger—his battery was often 
under shell fire; one time a shell burst almost at Goody’s 
feet and killed the major to whom he was talking. For 
two weeks in the Argonne Goody went to sleep every 
night—when he was able to get some sleep—not know¬ 
ing but that his next resting-place might be his last. 

Yet of these things he was oblivious. He did not 
want to die. He was even afraid of death—though his 
fear was not accompanied by the abdominal reactions 
that manifested themselves in his fellows. His fear 
never seemed to have any real hold upon him; it could 
touch his mind but not his body—it could make no 
impression on the firm set of his body cavity. Thus 
the fear of death never meant any more to him than 
the fear of losing at cards—it was to be avoided if 
possible, but there was no certain way to guard against 
it and a man was a chump to worry about it. 

That was his own attitude. He did not adopt the 
same standard for others. The first time his battery 
went under fire the shavetail next to him turned white. 
Goody first noticed the other’s condition when they com¬ 
pared their wrist watches. The fellow’s hand was 
shaking. 


138 


SOUND AND FURY 

“I get this way,” he complained. “I’m not really 
afraid—that is, I know I’m a fool.” 

"It's nothing,” Goody told him. “You’re just like 
Kipling’s elephant.” 

“How’s that?” 

“You can see inside your head. You’ve got imag¬ 
ination. I’m too dumb for that kind of thing.” Nor 
was he boasting. 

So simple a phrase, so kindly an explanation, was a 
tonic to the other. He betrayed no more fear that 
afternoon. 

Almost everyone who has witnessed a football game 
has beheld something of the same sort on a smaller scale. 
There is usually one man on a team, not necessarily 
stronger than his teammates, not necessarily a better 
player, who animates his ten comrades, who has 
courage, energy, confidence, enthusiasm, grit to spare, 
and who shares these with his fellows. Goody himself 
had played that role in his high-school days; now he 
was merely filling it before a larger audience. No task 
was too difficult for him now nor too tedious, none too 
dangerous, none too small. He was everywhere, and 
wherever he went he carried with him the same 
buoyancy, the same hearty, deep-throated chuckle, the 
same kindliness, the same virile sweetness and charm. 
He was creating the Goody Guthrie legend anew. 

For it was the Goody of the old days who served in 
that battery—the Goody of the years before his dis¬ 
appointments at college, before the dullness and arti¬ 
ficiality of life in Harpersburg had begun to eat into 
him, the Goody who disregarded the two idolets that 
139 


SOUND AND FURY 

had so long perched upon his shoulders. He never 
thought now of Harpers burg or Con—he was too busy. 
Occasionally he wondered how his father was—vaguely 
wondered—and then brought his mind back to his 
duties. 

The same ordeal of steel and filth that embittered so 
many who survived it, that disgusted and dismayed so 
many others, that turned still others into gibbering 
idiots, served only to give Goody complete possession 
of himself, to free him from the restraints that had been 
imposed upon him. The discipline of the army was not 
a restraint; it was a manifestation of the great iron 
machine of which he was a part. He who demanded 
freedom so greatly, felt himself free at last. He was 
living to the height of his powers. He was of the 
warrior caste, and our civilization had been able to find 
no better use for him than this senseless killing of 
human beings. He had been rebuffed in college, he had 
made no great success in business; he had been tricked 
by sentiment and his adventure had compelled his 
father to withdraw from public life. Only this single 
activity was open to him—only the profession of mur¬ 
der. That is why he put into it not only all his strength 
and courage but all his sweetness and charm as well. 
The charm Harpersburg would have been willing to 
grant, but it might have balked at the sweetness, yet 
never did a nurse tend her children more carefully than 
Goody watched the welfare of his men, watched them 
with a robust, blustering gentleness that made him a 
very demigod in their eyes, just as, in the old days, he 
had assumed heroic proportions to T. P. Harper and 

140 


SOUND AND FURY 
the youth of Harpersburg. He knew this and he grew 
to meet their conception of him. He felt himself 
bigger in every way than he had ever been before. He 
loved the men, he loved his fellow officers, he even had 
a queer kind of affection for the Germans, since with¬ 
out them there would have been no war. 

"It’s a good fight/' he said one day, “and on the 
level. When you get used to the smells, you can have 
a damned good time." 

“I don't know what I would do without that kid" 
(Goody was twenty-six), his colonel said of him one 
day. “This regiment would be all right if every officer 
except him were blown into Kingdom Come." 

Nor did Goody, in his joy at finding himself, lose his 
sense of humour. He continually discovered something 
to chuckle over. It was he who suggested to some 
white officers of an American Negro regiment that 
the rank and file be told, in an off-hand way, that 
the Germans made it a practice to emasculate every 
Negro they captured. Goody offered the suggestion 
more as a joke than anything else, but it was eagerly 
adopted—with astonishing results. Never did any 
men, white or coloured, fight more doggedly than 
the coloured soldiers of that regiment. Prodigies of 
valour were performed by individual bucks who sold 
their lives bravely rather than submit to capture—not 
a man but redoubled his zeal in defence of his country 
and his masculinity. 

The fact that he was responsible for the deaths of 
some Negroes who fell fighting when they might have 
surrendered, never bothered Goody any more than the 

141 


SOUND AND FURY 

thought that shells from his guns were killing Germans 
—or, for that matter, that German shells were killing 
Americans. It was all part of the big game of war. 
If a Negro or a white soldier could kill a German instead 
of tamely submitting to capture, so much the better. 
He himself was willing to die; he risked his life daily 
and he was not inclined to be any more squeamish 
about the lives of others. 

It was not until the German resistance crumbled dur¬ 
ing those last autumn days that Goody lost interest in 
the war. He was a Trojan, a Bonapartist, and a Con¬ 
federate; he felt himself born to lead a Lost Cause. It 
would have been more dramatic to die in defence of the 
Stars and Bars before Richmond than to carry the Stars 
and Stripes into Strasburg. Perhaps those last days 
reminded him too much of that scene in the Silver Lake 
cottage when he had unmercifully beaten Carpenter to 
death. He performed all his military duties diligently, 
but without zest. He was glad when the armistice was 
signed. 

Goody was a captain then. If the war had lasted a 
few weeks longer, he might have become a major. He 
had not attained the brigadier-generalship; he had not 
routed the Germans single-handed. Aside from two 
citations, his record was much like that of many other 
young men. But this did not trouble him. He knew 
that he had done his job well, and it was not often that 
he had had this consciousness. Looking back on it, it 
seemed rather a messy and senseless job, but he had 
lived those months on the firing-line fully and deeply. 

142 


SOUND AND FURY 
They had given him more than anything he had ever 
encountered in life. 

It was in the drab months after the armistice that 
Goody received news by cable from Con that his father 
had died. Later a letter from her supplied details, 
and in the same mail came a letter from Sid Haber, his 
lawyer. Aside from Con, he had no one very close to 
him in Harpersburg, and this letter from Haber 
brought that fact unpleasantly home. He would be 
much alone now—no father or mother, and he had 
never had a brother or sister. He was estranged from 
his mother’s relatives in the city—his father had none 
there. Yes, he would be pretty much alone, but Con 
would probably make up for everything. 

As for his father, an attack of influenza that turned 
into pneumonia had carried him off. He had kept his 
nerve until the end; Haber wrote that the man’s last 
words had been a jest about the whisky that was being 
wasted in an effort to stimulate his heart action. Good 
old Pop, game to the very core! Goody bet that he 
would have made a good Governor. As a boy he had 
alternately hated and worshipped his father, with the 
periods of hate enduring longer than the others, but 
there had followed years of almost perfect understand¬ 
ing and mutual respect. He was sorry the old man 
was gone. Harpersburg would seem a strange place 
without him. Queer, in a way, but it was Goody him¬ 
self who, by all the laws of chance, should have gone. 
He had risked his life any number of times, and, though 
143 


SOUND AND FURY 

he knew nothing about it except for a dull pain occa¬ 
sionally, he had exerted his heart beyond its capacity 
and in violation of the precepts of all the physicians 
on earth. Yet, here he was alive and to all intents 
absolutely well, while his father had succumbed to 
what began as an ordinary cold. It was hard to tell 
how things would turn out, and only a fool made 
predictions. Thus Goody, without sentimentality or 
mock heroics, took the news of his father’s death. 

Returning to this country after the purgatory of the 
post-armistice period, Goody met a Red Cross nurse on 
the boat. She meant nothing to him except that she 
was feminine—she was someone to talk to. Tom was 
the only man to whom he could reveal himself in¬ 
timately and fully, but it was not so difficult with 
women. 

"What’ll you do now?” she asked. 

"Marry.” 

"Yes, but what else?” 

"Have children.” 

"I didn’t mean that. What are you going to do to 
be alive? Aren’t you going to have any work?” 

"Why I guess I have to work unless I want the 
country to support me. That means I’ll keep up the 
old printing-shop.” 

"But isn’t there any work you want to do?” 

"Nothing that I can do. When I was a kid I thought 
I wanted to paint. Paint? With these?” He spread 
out his big, calloused hands. 

"It may not be too late.” 


144 


SOUND AND FURY 

Goody laughed scornfully. 

“But isn't there anything else you want to do? 
Why drag along in the printing business if you don't 
like it? Why don't you look for something you like?" 

“There isn't any kind of work I like. My teachers 
found that out right away. They all knew I was lazy 
and they kept after me to make me do their work and 
the more they kept after me the more determined I was 
not to do it. That's the way it would be with any job 
I took now." 

“But everybody tells me you made such a good 
officer." 

“That's different. That wasn't work—that was fight¬ 
ing. Even the dirty, rotten jobs meant fighting in the 
end. I could see that. Even when I was a buck pri¬ 
vate currycombing a horse, that wasn't just a horse—it 
was a horse that was going to wheel cannon into po¬ 
sition for fighting—it was all part of the fighting-game. 

“Men like me are made for fighting, but we aren’t 
good for much else. I guess we had our use all right, 
back in the days when the human race had to fight its 
way against wild animals and the cold and other dan¬ 
gers. Then we gave up fighting animals, except for 
fun, and took to fighting each other—the fighting men 
of one race against the fighting men of another. Fi¬ 
nally, we became such a nuisance that they drew up 
fancy rules by which we fought each other and called 
it chivalry. We were dumb-bells and thought there 
was some honour in it. We didn't know that sensible 
men had drawn up these rules in order to encourage us 
to kill each other off and let honest people alone. That 
145 


SOUND AND FURY 

was all we were good for—killing—and a certain num¬ 
ber of us had to die every year, for we wouldn't work 
and if we hadn't kept killing each other there would 
have been too many of us for honest men to support. 

'That's about where I stand to-day. I didn't get 
killed off, and I've come back to let my country support 
me. But folks are wiser than they used to be. They 
look at me and say: 'You big bum, so you came back 
after all, worse luck! Well, don’t expect us to provide 
for you. If you want to eat, go out and earn your 
food. We've supported your kind for a couple of thou¬ 
sand years and we're pretty sick of the job.' 

"That's about where I stand to-day. It's nice of you 
to listen to my troubles." 

The nurse laughed. "But isn't there anything you 
can do that will use those same qualities that made you 
a good soldier?" 

"Why, yes," replied Goody with apparent serious¬ 
ness, "I can become a cop"—which remark turned the 
conversation into other channels. 


146 


VI 


HEN Goody returned to Harpersburg his 



photograph was printed in the Harpersburg 


Tribune, representative of all that was most 


sacred in Harpersburg tradition. This meant that the 
city of his birth had once more taken him to its heart, 
that his sins had been forgiven, and that he again 
was of the elect. This was worth nothing at all to 
Goody except that it carried balm to Con, who had been 
dismayed by the subtle intimations that Goody had 
forfeited his seat among the mighty. 

Goody’s photograph was two columns in width and 
under it appeared a few hundred words describing how 
significantly that son of old Harpersburg had contrib¬ 
uted to America’s victory. The picture was flanked on 
one side by a patent-medicine ad, on the other by an 
account of a luncheon of the Rotary Club. For a new 
spirit was rampant in Harpersburg—the very essence 
of “Do-it-now-ism” was abroad in the city. The war 
had wrought many changes. New fortunes had been 
made—new fortunes in Harpersburg!—new homes were 
being erected, new names were being proposed at the 
Country Club, new families would soon appear in the 
society column, graduating from the department headed 
“Social Notes” to that dignified by the title “Harpers¬ 
burg Society.” 


147 


SOUND AND FURY 
The new dollars had bred an uneasy itch. Harpers- 
burg had seemed unworldly and uncommercial only by 
comparison with the young, bustling giants like De¬ 
troit, Cleveland, Minneapolis. Now men had shown 
that even in Harpersburg one could suddenly become 
wealthy. Why not in Harpersburg? Wasn’t Henry 
Ford going to build a factory there? Weren’t new 
businesses springing up all the time—corporations, 
amalgamations? And now that money could be made, 
it became tenfold more attractive than ever. There 
were new ways in which to spend it. New forms of 
luxury were discovered. Everyone who was anybody 
had an automobile, and whether you had a Cadillac or 
a Buick denoted instantly your place in society. Din¬ 
ing once a week at the Harpersburg, the city’s only 
first-class hotel, became a social obligation. The auto¬ 
mobiles were new—they had to be used. People drove 
to Chicago, to New York, to St. Louis—to San Fran¬ 
cisco! Anywhere if only it were motion! Anything 
if only it were excitement! Alas that the thrills were 
so few! Soon even dining in the Harpersburg must 
pall. An end must come even to racing back and forth 
between Harpersburg and New York. The dollars 
were bright and shining and new; there were many of 
them, but it took such sums to buy even the simplest 
things. The price of everything soared. Servants 
were few; they demanded fabulous wages. They were 
insolent and left on the slightest provocation. The 
Negroes, ordained by God to be hewers of wood and 
drawers of water, did not know their places. The steel- 

148 


SOUND AND FURY 
workers struck. The coal-miners struck. The country 
was on the verge of a Bolshevist revolution—this on the 
word of the Attorney-General, who certainly ought to 
know. It was a topsy-turvy world, a mad world, a 
world that was spending faster than it created, a world 
of fickle values, a feverish, worried, harried, breathless, 
brain-sick world. 

Goody had no more illusions about Harpersburg than 
he had had about Verdun. He knew that, in addition 
to keeping the home fires burning, the good folks back 
in Harpersburg had been making all the money out of 
the war that they could. Con’s father, for instance, had 
obtained a Government contract for mules and had 
made more during the war than in the previous ten 
years. He didn’t blame his future father-in-law—but 
why make such a fuss about your patriotism? He 
knew that most of the professional patriots of his city, 
organizers of meetings, writers of letters to the Tribune, 
wordy exponents of universal military service, pur¬ 
veyors of bootleg hatred against radicals, panders to 
the mob and the mob spirit, had found some way in 
which to make their patriotism pay, financially, so¬ 
cially, or otherwise. He knew all this, and he was 
disgusted by the flagrant bad taste of this new madness. 
The calm dignity of life in Harpersburg seemed to have 
vanished. 

"McLoughlin changed the game of tennis,” Goody 
told Con. "He gave it pace and speed. I like that in 
tennis but not in my own city. You wouldn’t invite 
McLoughlin to spend a week with you and bang tennis 
149 


SOUND AND FURY 

balls at you all that time. Everything here now is 
speed; if you falter you’re a step behind, and if you’re 
a step behind you’re out. I guess I’m getting old.” 

Con liked the new mode no better than he. It dis¬ 
turbed established values. It threatened the stability 
of the existing social regime. Con opposed anything 
that made her think new thoughts or feel new sensa¬ 
tions. If it were new it was “horrible,” and no more 
need be said. As a girl she had shown a tendency to 
primness and this primness had become smugness. 
Whatever was was good, because she had accepted it. 
The world as it existed was perfect—or would be with 
a little more legislation—because in it she functioned 
easily, without hindrance, without opposition. 

Goody’s captaincy and his two citations were a mere 
nothing compared with the war record of Con. Never 
a demand for money in Harpersburg but she had voiced 
it, never a committee formed for welfare work but she 
had helped select it. She had led drives and exacted 
contributions. She had induced women to plan their 
menus without wheat; she had closed the butcher shops 
on meatless days. The mayor had consulted her when 
drawing up new regulations for the restricted district. 
She had sent her committee women to the dance halls. 
She had sold Liberty Bonds and outbeggared the pan¬ 
handlers in the street with her pleas for contributions to 
welfare campaigns. She had been all things to all 
causes. She had even thought of going abroad to do 
Y. W. C. A. work, but she had abandoned that idea. 
After all, she was of more use at home. What would 
Harpersburg do without her? 


150 


SOUND AND FURY 

Where there has been no illusion, there can be no 
disillusionment. Thus, when the Harpersburg post of 
the American Legion decided to prove its patriotism by 
forbidding an Austrian violinist, an officer and a gallant 
gentleman, to play in that city, Goody merely resigned 
from the Legion and dismissed the incident. It was 
part of the human comedy—a debased and sickly part 
—and though he would not share in this debasement it 
did not disgust him. It was just like little tenement 
youngsters violating decency in the street—the children 
had to get rid of the secretion and, through a combina¬ 
tion of poverty and bad taste, they were apparently com¬ 
pelled to do so in public. In the same manner the 
legionnaires were giving vent to secretions of a different 
kind; they chose an unfortunate occasion, but the 
putrescent hatreds within them had to find some outlet. 

At that particular time the American Legion had be¬ 
come entangled in the American consciousness with the 
Constitution; each was equally sacred in the eyes of 
respectable public opinion. Yet Goody suffered no un¬ 
popularity because of his resignation from the Legion, 
just as he had remained pro-German during the first 
years of the war without incurring any odium. This 
was final proof that Harpersburg had once more ac¬ 
cepted him as its own—accepted him on his own terms, 
as a man who went his own way and thought his own 
thoughts, without reference to anyone else, who could 
never be counted upon to do what was expected of him 
and who cared so little for public opinion that he would 
not bother even to defy it. The Goody Guthrie legend 
flourished once more. His contemporaries remembered 
151 


SOUND AND FURY 

when no boy his size had dared oppose him. Clearly 
such a person could not be expected to follow the chalk 
lines marked for the guidance of ordinary mortals. 

Goody was now a person of consequence in Harpers- 
burg. He was the sole owner of the Guthrie printing- 
plant, and during the war this had grown. Goody and 
Sid Haber were the executors of his father’s estate and 
everything had been left to the young man, aside from 
bequests to charities. Goody glanced at the figures 
which Haber put before him. They showed that he 
possessed more than twenty thousand dollars in money 
and Liberty Bonds, in addition to the printing-plant, 
which should now bring in an income of more than 
half that much a year. There were not many young 
men, aside from those belonging to the very wealth¬ 
iest families, who would have larger incomes at their 
disposal. 

The money itself meant nothing to Goody. He 
made up his mind to study the figures for the plant at 
some other time when he felt more like it, and this oc¬ 
casion never came. He knew how the business should 
be run—that is, he knew how his father had run it— 
and that was sufficient. If he ever had to buy some 
more linotype machines or another Hoe press, he could 
take up such matters as inventories, depreciation, and 
so forth. Fortunately, the plant involved few ques¬ 
tions of intricate financing. His father had seldom 
been compelled to go to the banks for loans. Of course, 
the business had suffered during the interval between 
his father’s death and his own return home, but a little 

152 


SOUND AND FURY 
energy would soon bring matters to rights again. 
Goody’s first move was to increase the pay of all the 
foremen; he regarded them as his staff and he knew that 
on this staff he would have to lean rather heavily at 
times. 

But what the money and the printing-plant did mean 
was that now he could marry. Con herself could 
suggest no reason for delay. The engagement was 
formally announced to a world that already was well 
aware of it, and a date for the wedding was set. They 
were to marry in June and it now was March. 

Goody knew that the element of romance in con¬ 
nection with his marriage had more or less evaporated, 
but he told himself that the love he felt for Con was 
the mature kind that endures—the kind that a man 
should feel for his wife. It was mixed with a great 
deal of respect—and that, too, was as it should have 
been. Its very unlikeness to the gold and purple clouds 
amid which he had lost himself at Silver Lake proved 
its validity. Finally, he told himself, she was a wife 
of whom he could be proud. No other woman in Har- 
persburg was as prominent as she (barring the young 
person down on Market Street who had achieved a brief 
notoriety by blowing out her lover’s brains as he slept). 
No other woman helped in so many good causes, none 
had been referred to so fulsomely by the Tribune in its 
double-page article, “What the Women of Harpers- 
burg Did During the War.” 

The judgments of Harpersburg were not Goody’s 
judgments, but when he desired Con he was not the 
Goody who despised all cant; he was the Goody who 
153 


SOUND AND FURY 

had, as a boy, borne on his shoulders the two idolets 
whispering their sage advice. He was the Goody who 
had immortalized his weak, ineffective, shallow mother 
and who had come to see her reflected and reborn in 
Con. 

% And Con was undeniably pretty. She was not an 
extraordinary beauty, but her severely classic profile 
was as different, in its way, from the common types 
of feminine heads in Harpersburg as Goody himself 
was from the humdrum life about him. Con usually 
dressed in a manner as severe and simple as her face. 
She parted her dark brown hair in the middle and wore 
it brushed down against her head. White shirtwaist 
and skirt was her ordinary wear, in keeping with the 
plain clothes of those engaged with her in social work. 
Though most of the girls in Harpersburg wore dresses 
that reached little below their knees and that often ex¬ 
posed much more, Con’s were down nearly to her ankles. 

Her ideas were as conservative as her skirts. True 
to the High Church creed, she regarded marriage as a 
sacrament which no divorce provided by earthly laws 
could dissolve. Not all the experience gained in her 
social work could convince her to the .contrary. She 
had no hesitation in separating families, upon occasion, 
but that, as she explained, was a very different matter 
from divorce. Whether she expected the man and 
woman thus separated to live lives of eternal celibacy 
no one inquired, but if any had dared to do so her re¬ 
ply would certainly have been in the affirmative. 


154 


SOUND AND FURY 

For Con, just as she had studied art in New York 
for two years without imbibing any hint of the spirit 
of the metropolis, had remained surprisingly untouched 
by the misery she had sought and found. It had 
taught her nothing. She had brought to her social 
work her orthodox Episcopalianism with its conception 
of Christ as the First Christian Gentleman and its ex¬ 
altation of gentility as the first of all virtues. To this 
simple and naive creed she clung. In the midst of the 
profoundest woes of humankind she remained, as her 
mother put it, “her own cheerful little self’—as indeed 
she well could, inasmuch as the woes were not her own. 

But it was not merely that Con's emotions were never 
touched by the pictures of heart-breaking misery about 
her—her intellect was equally uninfluenced. It never 
occurred to her that a state of society which inflicted 
such degradation and suffering upon helpless children, 
upon strong, patient women, upon men battered and 
broken by work, could be anything but the best of all 
societies and that this could be anything but the best 
of all possible worlds. Hers was not a mind that in¬ 
quired into causes, and her thoughts never went higher 
than the probable size of a legislative appropriation. 
Yet she was thoroughly good. She wished to end child 
labour, the work of women at night, industrial diseases, 
illiteracy, feeble-mindedness, venereal diseases—she 
wished to end all these provided the remedy did not go 
too deep and did not cause her any inconvenience. 

Con even wished to end all war and was an earnest 
advocate of President Wilson in the contest he was 
155 


SOUND AND FURY 

waging with the Senate. Goody had no great objection 
to the League, but he could not become enthusiastic in 
its support. 

“Treaties are always scraps of paper/' he told Con. 
“They'll always be violated whenever it is to the in¬ 
terest of a strong nation to do so. I don't see why the 
League agreement should be kept any more than the 
hundreds of other treaties that nations have broken. 
Of course, it'll always be the other nation that breaks 
the covenant and we'll always be fighting to protect the 
sanctity of the agreement—and as long as we have law¬ 
yers we’ll be able to prove it. But it won't mean 
anything." 

“Don't you want to end all wars?" Con appealed to 
him. 

“Why, I've had my war and that's enough for me, I 
guess. I don't hanker for another in my lifetime. But 
wanting to do a thing is very different from doing it. 
If I were President I might want to prevent wars, but 
how could I go about doing it? Blessed if I know! 
If I were a democrat, I'd say by putting the question of 
war up to the people who are going to fight it. But 
I’m not a democrat. The people have too darned much 
power as it is and not enough sense." 

On the question of Bolshevism Con and Goody dis¬ 
agreed again. Con was for hanging all Bolshevists in 
the United States and overthrowing the Soviet regime 
in Russia. Goody, to whom the shibboleths of pa¬ 
triotism were meaningless, was more or less indifferent 
to the radicals at home, as he had been to Socialists in 
earlier years, but he added of Russia: “Watch those 

156 


SOUND AND FURY 
bearded birds in Moscow. They aren’t democrats any 
more than I am. They believe in making things go. 
They’re gamblers. They’ve bet everything they have, 
including their heads. I don’t know what I’d think of 
them if I were a Russian, but I’m not. 1 can just sit 
back and watch them.” 

Goody had been home only six weeks when he had a 
taste of what the growing power of labour meant. The 
printing-plant had always been run on what was called 
an 'open shop” basis, but the union influence was 
strong, since every increase of pay at union establish¬ 
ments had to be met by a similar one at the Guthrie 
plant, while many of the employees there were openly 
members of the union. During the days of the elder 
Guthrie’s political ambitions, he had contemplated per¬ 
mitting the unions to organize the establishment, but 
the matter had gone no further. 

Goody received hints now from his foremen that the 
unions were busy organizing both the composing and 
the press-room forces, but he laughed off the idea that 
they might make any progress. One day at noon, how¬ 
ever, a committee of five employees came to his office. 
They hesitated at the door. "Come in,” Goody called. 

They entered, somewhat embarrassed, and waited. 

"Well, what is it, fellows?” asked the young man. 

The eldest present, Bennett, a grey-haired make-up 
man, cleared his throat and began: "Mr. Guthrie, 
we-” 

"Since when have we become so formal, Tom?” 

"Well, darn it, Goody, I’m not speaking for myself. 

157 


SOUND AND FURY 

We’ve come here to say that this plant is organized one 
hundred per cent and that we want it an out-and-out 
union shop.” 

“You’re getting union wages now, aren’t you?” 

“Yes. But we want union rules.” 

“Have you any kick personally?” he asked. 

“No.” 

“Have any of you others?” Goody turned to the 
rest. 

They answered one by one in the negative. 

“So all you want is the pleasure of paying dues to 
the union?” 

“We do that anyway,” broke in Bennett quickly. 
“I’ve been a union man for twenty years and you’ve 
known it—your father knew it. We want this a union 
shop.” 

“But suppose I don’t want it one?” 

“There’ll be a strike.” Bennett and the others seemed 
much more at ease, now that this announcement had 
been delivered. 

Goody thought a moment. A strike meant a fight 
and humiliation for one side or the other. He had 
never avoided a fight in his life, but he did not like the 
prospect of this one. That old codger Bennett and the 
others meant something to him—in a way, he had 
grown up with them. Also, viewed unsentimentally, 
labour was scarce right now. It would be difficult to 
get a force together—and expensive. He would have 
to take any printers he could get, and these were trained 
men who knew how he wanted things done. Better 
still, they knew how things ought to be done. The 

158 


SOUND AND FURY 
plant almost ran itself. It would be darned hard work 
with green men. And the plant was making good 
money right now, if Goody could understand the 
figures. It would be a shame to mess things up. He 
hated being dictated to—that was the only rub. 

‘Til think things over/’ he finally said to Bennett. 

“When will you give us an answer?” Bennett had 
been told to demand one that afternoon, but he wisely 
departed from his instructions. He did not want the 
sudden flare of anger that might follow the delivery of 
a downright ultimatum. 

“Come in to-morrow morning, Tom, and I’ll tell 
you,” said Goody, which closed the interview. 

Later that afternoon, however, Goody sent for Ben¬ 
nett and the matter was settled. The Guthrie plant 
became a union shop. On the face of it this made no 
change, but the union rules increased the labour ex¬ 
pense. The work that apprentices could do was lim¬ 
ited, as well as the number of apprentices that could be 
employed. The different unions in the plant sharply 
defined the duties of the various crafts and no man 
could be called upon to do anything outside his par¬ 
ticular kind of work. There were stricter regulations 
about overtime. However, business was good and it 
could bear the added burden. Goody never troubled 
about details, but he felt sure that everything was all 
right. 

The next week Goody received a visitor of an en¬ 
tirely different kind. He was dictating letters to a 
stenographer when Carter Fairchild entered the outer 
159 


SOUND AND FURY 

office. Through the open door Goody called for him 
to come in. 

After an exchange of greetings, warmer on the part 
of the highly proper Fairchild than on Goody’s, there 
was silence. 

'Tact is, Guthrie,” said the other, "this is a con¬ 
fidential matter.” 

"As you please. Do you mind going out, Miss 
Schwartz?” 

"Now we can get down to business.” Fairchild drew 
up a chair. "Here’s the point, Guthrie. This country 
is going to the dogs. Too many damned agitators. 
Too much Bolshevism and unionism. Now what can 
we do about it?” 

v It’s plain you know what you think you can do 
about it,” replied Goody. "Why make me guess?” 

"All this is strictly confidential?” 

"I don’t want any confidences. I’m not Dolly Dins- 
more.” (Dolly was the young person of forty-five 
whose "Advice to the Lovelorn” appeared in the Har- 
persburg Post). 

"But I can’t go ahead unless I get your promise that 
this will be absolutely confidential.” 

Goody was in a hurry to get the matter over. "Go 
ahead; you have my promise,” he said. 

"Here’s the idea, Guthrie,” continued the other when 
he had this assurance. "We’ve decided, a dozen or so 
of us, to form a society to get rid of these agitators. 
Run them out of town. Warn them first, and if they 
don’t go, why, run them out.” 


160 


SOUND AND FURY 

“Ku Klux?” The name was beginning to be heard 
again. 

“Naw, nothing foolish like that. We mean business. 
Call it Knights of the Red Star or something of the 
sort. We’ve got about a dozen. Want you and a few 
more—say, limit the whole thing to twenty-five. What 
d’you say?” 

When Goody did not answer immediately, he 
went on : 

“You’ve had trouble yourself with this union monkey 
business. Tell you how to run your plant. Increase 
your costs. It’s coming to a lot worse than that. 
We'd end the damned nonsense. Horsewhip a couple 
of the ringleaders. Show them where they get off. 
This isn't any country for agitators. What d’you say?” 

“Just this.” Goody brought his fist down on his desk. 
“Out of the goodness of my heart I’ll let you live.” 

“Wh—a—a—t!” 

“I said I’d let you live. Better get out before I 
change my mind.” Goody glared at him. “I’ll let 
you live in spite of the insult of thinking me such a 
cowardly cur that I’d join with bastards like you to 
beat up men at night—twenty-five to one! Did you 
hear what I said? Are you tired of life? Why are 
you staying here?” 

Fairchild had his hat and was backing toward the 
door. “You promised—this would be confidential.” 

“I’ll change my mind about letting you live if you 
insinuate I’m a liar. Wait!” Fairchild took his hand 
from the doorknob as though it were red-hot. 

161 


SOUND AND FURY 

“I promised this would be confidential. Now Fll tell 
you something that isn't confidential. If I hear of any 
of these whippings I'll know who was responsible, and 
I'll beat you within an inch of your life. Now get 
out!" 

Five minutes later Goody, dictating to Miss 
Schwartz, laughed. Really, he did not care whether or 
not they beat up labour agitators—did not care very 
much, at least. It was the vile insult of inviting him 
to join them that rankled. He had never liked Fair- 
child anyway. The poor fool had cut a sorry enough 
figure. “I wonder," mused Goody, “if he appreciated 
my generosity in letting him escape alive." Then he 
went on with the letter. 

When the day of his wedding was only a week off. 
Goody received what was evidently intended to be a 
humorous letter from Tom. It seemed somewhat 
strained, however, and in poor taste; Goody thought he 
could read in the burlesque an undercurrent of bitter¬ 
ness and resentment. Unless he missed his guess, Tom 
was finding marriage anything except an Elysium. 

“Years ago it was the fashion," the letter read in 
part, “to censure mothers for permitting their daughters 
to enter the marital state without the slightest concep¬ 
tion of what such relations mean. Infinitely more to 
blame are our fathers—your own dear dad among them 
—for letting us poor males blunder into marriage with¬ 
out the least idea of what that state entails—of the de¬ 
mands it makes upon our courage, our tenacity, our 
will-power, and our very selves—for allowing us to do 

162 


SOUND AND FURY 
this without any knowledge of the necessary defences, 
the guards, the counters we must employ. 

'To a man about to marry I would say: 'Protect 
your self as you would your life. It will be assailed 
from every side. It will be mined, flattered, bullied, 
cajoled, denounced, flouted, upbraided, shelled, hacked, 
besieged, invaded at every turn. Defend it. It is all 
you have. Lose it and become a Rockefeller and you 
will be poor indeed. Preserve it intact, for it is the 
kernel of your being, your only excuse for existence, 
the one pearl beyond price. Chastity, cleanliness, god¬ 
liness, popularity, prosperity, all the virtues, all the 
wealth, all the pomp, all the power are nothing beside 
it. It is single and incomparable. If it is divided, 
nothing remains. If it is shared, it is poison. If it is 
impaired, it cannot be regained. It is the You within 
you, your holy of holies, your one exclusive, un¬ 
challengeable possession that, alas, is to be challenged 
every moment of the day, every day of the year, and 
every year of your life!’ 

"So I say to you: 'Guard your Goody-ness. It is 
You. No one has the right to twist or warp it. No 
one should dare to break or bend it. You are Goody 
Guthrie. You can never be any more than that—but 
you may become much less. Remain Goody Guthrie. 
Resist everything that would make you otherwise/ 

"Pray forgive the candour of an old friend who 
breaks the traditional bonds of silence that unite all 
married men in a great conspiracy against the un¬ 
married. Not a married male in Harpersburg but 
knows that what I say is true—and will deny it. It 
163 


SOUND AND FURY 

is the schoolboy stoically enduring the paddling in an¬ 
ticipation of watching his fellows submit to a similar 
indignity. All of us have been curbed. We are beaten 
men, broken, harnessed, yoked, subdued. We chew on 
the bit of restraint. We no longer have anything to 
hope for and little more to fear. Discipline has eaten 
into our souls. Rebellion is the wild dream of an un¬ 
sound mind, the distillation of alcohol, the fermentation 
of despair. 

“But you are young, you are strong, you are warned. 
Resist where we have submitted. Conquer where we 
have failed. Reflect on Satan, that archetype of un- 
vanquishable male. In his name, Forward to Victory!" 

“A crazy lot of junk/' was Goody's comment. 
“Wonder how long it took him to write it." 

For a few minutes he considered sending Tom a 
telegram: “Advertising business must be dull." He 
even wrote it out on a Western Union blank, but then 
tore it up. The whole thing wasn't worth making a 
fuss about. 

So Con and Goody were married. Big, formal wed¬ 
dings were “horrible" to Con—they smacked of the gay 
world on which she had turned her back—and Goody 
liked them no better. Only Con’s parents, her brother, 
and half a dozen friends were present when the very 
correct Episcopal clergyman performed the ceremony 
in St. Christopher's. There followed a quiet luncheon 
at Con's home. High Church Episcopalians might not 
look with favour upon prohibition, but it was the 
law of the land and Con believed it should be obeyed. 

164 


SOUND AND FURY 

Besides, without in any way endorsing the measure, 
she could quote statistics showing its sociological 
importance. 

The guests left early, but not so soon as Goody and 
his wife. There was nothing “horrible” about their 
leave-taking—no old shoes, no rice, no tears on the part 
of either Con or her mother. It was very enlight¬ 
ened, very twentieth-century, very matter-of-fact—just 
what might have been expected from so enlightened, 
twentieth-century, and matter-of-fact a person as Con. 
The Shortridge family car, driven by the family 
chauffeur, took them to the railroad station, where they 
caught the Chicago express. They were bound for a 
little resort in the Michigan woods. It was an unpre¬ 
tentious place with no society flavour about it. The 
shirtwaist-and-skirt Con recoiled as much as Goody 
from any hotel where one had to put on evening clothes 
for dinner. Now of all times she wanted quiet and 
simplicity. 

They got aboard the train and arranged their bag¬ 
gage in the drawing-room. The train began to move. 
They were alone. They were married. 

One piece of baggage, however, there was no need to 
bestow. It was the owl-like idolet that perched on 
Goody’s shoulder. 


165 


VII 


ON and Goody had hardly begun their married 



life in Harpersburg when disagreeable news fil- 


tered through to the latter. He learned of it 
only by chance. Upon his return, he happened to pick 
up a copy of a week-old Post . In a small item on an 
inside page he read: 

“Former City Boy Kills Self.” 

It was Tom. The dispatch was from New York. It 
gave little more than the name and age of the suicide 
and the method employed—poison. Then there was a 
line to say that no motive for the act had been 
discovered. 

The only link between the two friends had been their 
letters and sometimes half a year passed between replies. 
If Goody had not seen the paper he might have re¬ 
mained ignorant for months of the other’s death. He 
called Con. The news disturbed her too. 

“I had a queer letter from him before we married,” 
Goody said. “I didn’t pay much attention to it. I 
was going to make a nasty answer—I’m glad now I 
didn’t.” 

“You didn’t tell me about the letter,” Con objected. 

“I didn’t think of it. It was just a rambling sort of 


thing.” 

“T ^ 


Let me see it 


166 


SOUND AND FURY 

'‘I tore it up. I never guessed anything was bother¬ 
ing him/' 

“What was in it?” 

“I don't remember much of it—just about marriage 
and what a dangerous thing it was. I thought he was 
just trying to be funny about it the way lots of fel¬ 
lows do.” 

The more Goody thought of it, the more deeply the 
news cut into him. Tom was his oldest friend. His 
associations with Tom went back farther than those 
with any living person—farther than those with Con. 
He would never again have a friend whom he could 
trust so fully and implicitly—not trust with fool things 
like money, but trust with friendship. He could go 
without seeing Tom for years—go without writing to 
him for nearly as long—and then see him and begin 
the friendship right where it had been left off. Why 
had Tom done it? What connection did it have with 
that letter? 

“I'm going to New York,” Goody suddenly 
announced. 

“New York? Why?” 

“On account of this thing.” 

“But what can you do? The funeral was held long 
ago.” 

“I wouldn’t cross the street for anybody’s funeral. 
This thing worries me. I want to go there and ask 
questions. Anyway, perhaps I can be of some use to 
his wife.” 

“From what you tell me about her, she won't need 
you or want you.” 

167 


SOUND AND FURY 

“I guess not, but Fm going anyway.” 

“We haven’t been married a month and you want to 
leave me.” 

“Why, you’re coming along.” (It was the first time 
he had thought of it, but he tried to say this as though 
it had been in his mind all the while.) 

“Now you’re silly. Isn’t the State Board of Char¬ 
ities going to be in session here three days? And I’m 
far enough behind in my work without going away 
again.” 

“I’ll wait until after the Board’s meeting.” 

“I won’t be able to go then. Besides, I hate New 
York. You can go without me.” 

“I'll just be gone a couple of days.” 

He left the next evening after a day spent in thinking 
of little else. The papers were full of the coming 
Dempsey-Carpentier fight and in some way he identi¬ 
fied Tom with Carpentier, upon whom some sporting- 
page writer had fixed the appellation “the Orchid 
Man.” In a sense, this fitted Tom. There was some¬ 
thing frail and delicate about him. He had not been 
robust as a boy. He had triumphed only in the class¬ 
room; at games he had been excelled even by younger 
boys. It was true that in their fights as children Tom 
had held his own, but Goody now had sense enough to 
understand that this was because Tom had wanted his 
respect so fiercely and had recognized that this was the 
one infallible way to obtain it. 

Goody thought over what he could remember of the 
letter. It was plain that Tom had visualized marriage 

168 


SOUND AND FURY 
as something vigorous and overbearing like Dempsey; 
the struggle against it had sapped his strength and now 
he simply wasn’t. He had been too frail or too weak 
or too something. Just as he neither opposed the war 
nor entered into it, so he had not possessed the strength 
either to shape his marriage to suit himself or, failing 
that, to break it. 

It worried Goody. Tom was very dear to him. He 
did not really respect him, but that did not matter. 
He realized now that the friendship had had some qual¬ 
ities in it that he had never before suspected. He 
would have given anything to be able to slap Tom on 
the back again or to take his arm. There was an in¬ 
tense longing to touch him, if only for a moment. He 
thought of their many physical contacts, how they had 
wrestled and rolled about on the grass together as boys. 
There the friendship had had its roots in their puppy¬ 
like intimacies. How could he ever feel toward an¬ 
other man the way he felt toward Tom? When you 
met men now, you shook their hands and said you were 
glad to know them. You didn’t roll about on the grass 
with them. Friendships of that kind were gone for 
ever. He had lots of good friends in Harpersburg, of 
course, but he saw them all as persons outside himself. 
Tom, for all their long separation, had remained part of 
him. No, friendships of that kind were past. It was 
different with a woman—you could get intimate with 
her. But he was married. There remained only Con 
—unless children came. He and Con must face the 
world together. He had no one else to rely upon. 

169 


SOUND AND FURY 

Evelyn, looking very much unlike the Harpersburg 
conception of a widow, received Goody in her apart¬ 
ment. The fact that she did not wear mourning he 
did not in the least resent, but there seemed something 
indecent in the bright, natural red of her cheeks, her 
sparkling black eyes, and the glow of ease and content¬ 
ment that exuded from her. 

Much had happened since Goody saw Evelyn on the 
eve of his departure aboard the Leviathan. Simplicity 
was now the note of her set. Her hair was not bobbed, 
but it was parted simply in the middle and drawn 
sharply back over her ears. She spoke in the plain, di¬ 
rect manner of a child; there was something about her 
that suggested, along with her very evident sophistica¬ 
tion, a pre-Raphaelite conception of a dairymaid or 
shepherdess. 

Goody found this very simplicity baffling. It was 
too naive and transparent to be real. He looked into 
the crystal and saw nothing, but he felt sure that it hid 
something, for all its seemingly flawless clarity. 

Indeed, it was hard to believe that this was the same 
young woman who had so expertly put him in his place 
upon their first encounter. Now she was responding 
as meekly to his questions as though she were a first- 
grade pupil and he the principal of the school. But he 
did not question her long nor closely. He had hoped 
that, as she knew him to be Tom's oldest friend, she 
would find it possible to take him in some measure into 
her confidence. But Evelyn, in her new-found sim¬ 
plicity, was again like a pupil being questioned. She 
responded to the queries put to her, but she volunteered 

170 


SOUND AND FURY 
nothing in return. He gave her opportunities aplenty 
and waited in expectation, but she merely sat and looked 
at him with the charming unconcern of a lady of seven. 
Goody’s position became more and more untenable. 
He did not know why he had come to see her. He rose 
to go and she did not urge him to remain. Their good¬ 
bye had an air of finality. 

Goody now went to the advertising agency where 
Tom had worked. If he had no better luck here, he 
would take the next train back to Harpersburg and ad¬ 
mit that Con had been right and that it had been a 
fool’s errand. The advertising agency’s offices were a 
great deal more magnificent than those of the gover¬ 
nor of Goody’s State. He was received with deference 
by a beautiful young thing who. Goody commented 
mentally, would have graced a Follies chorus—this 
from Goody who had never beheld a Ziegfeld produc¬ 
tion but who was willing to accept the popular ap¬ 
praisal of the Follies beauties. 

The agency was that of Harris and Sommerfield, and 
Goody asked at once for Mr. Harris. 

“There’s no Mr. Harris,” the fair one responded, and 
her deference diminished perceptibly. Clearly it was 
a barbarian with whom she had to deal. 

“Then Mr. Sommerfield.” 

“There’s no Mr. Sommerfield.” 

“Then whoever is the head of the concern.” 

“Mr Klein is the president.” 

“Let me see him.” 

“He’s out of town.” 

“Is this a guessing-game?” demanded Goody, but an- 

171 


SOUND AND FURY 

other look at the fair and empty head before him 
checked his annoyance. "Let me see someone who can 
tell me something about Mr. Penny. I was a very good 
friend of his/' 

The girl’s manner became more sympathetic. 'Til 
see if Mr. Cosgrave, the vice-president, is in,” she said. 
"Will you give me your name?” 

Goody gave her a card, and a few moments later she 
conducted him into a private office. A tall, lean man 
who was signing some letters looked up as Goody en¬ 
tered and rose to shake hands with him. 

"You were a friend of Penny’s?” 

"A very good friend—his oldest.” 

"He was an amazingly talented young man—full of 
promise. I’m sorry I can’t tell you much about him. 
I didn’t see him except in the office and, frankly, 1 
didn’t know much about him. But Gage here was very 
intimate with him—I’ll get Gage, and you can talk with 
him.” 

He rang a bell and gave a message to the girl who 
responded and in a few moments Gage appeared. He 
and Goody were introduced. Goody said good-bye to 
Cosgrave, who evidently wanted to be let alone, and 
followed Gage into the latter’s cubbyhole. 

"I don’t know that there’s much I can tell you,” be¬ 
gan the other, running his hand through his bushy 
hair, "and then again perhaps there is. I remember 
Tom talking about you. How are you fixed for dinner 
to-night?” 

"No engagement.” 


172 


SOUND AND FURY 

“Then take dinner with me and we’ll have a talk to¬ 
gether. It’s hard to get at things in here.” 

Goody thanked the other and left. He had over half 
the day to waste before calling for Gage at the office, 
and for the most part he rambled aimlessly about the 
city or read newspapers in hotel lobbies. 

At half past five he came back for Gage and the two 
left together. “Do you like Italian food?” asked his 
host as they stepped out of the elevator. 

“What I know of it.” 

“It’s too early for dinner anyway, so let’s walk down¬ 
town and I’ll take you to a real Italian place—none of 
these sightseers’ restaurants fixed up for New Yorkers 
who like to think they’re Bohemian.” 

The restaurant proved to a dingy little place down 
on Mulberry Street where the proprietor sat behind the 
cash register in his shirt-sleeves and the table-cloths 
were considerably the worse for wear. The food, how¬ 
ever, was excellent, and Gage drank freely of the red 
wine he had ordered, though Goody merely sipped his. 

Goody had made one or two attempts to turn the con¬ 
versation toward Tom, but Gage had deftly evaded 
them. Now, evidently satisfied, he lighted a huge pipe 
and began: 

“I asked you to have dinner with me first because I 
can’t talk about things that interest me in that vile hole 
where I work, and second, because I didn’t know 
whether or not I would like you, and if I didn’t like 
you I wasn’t going to tell you anything. But I like 
you, so here goes. 

173 


SOUND AND FURY 

“You knew Tom pretty well, didn't you?" Goody 
nodded. “How well did you know his wife?" 

“Not very well at all. 1 met her only once before 
to-day." 

“It would have been a great deal better for Tom if he 
hadn't met her at all. In fact, that goes for all of us. 
Each one of us would be a great deal better off if he 
hadn't met some one woman of his acquaintance. 
Usually it's his wife—sometimes it’s his mother or— 
this doesn't interest you? Well, I'll try to keep to the 
subject. 

“I don't guess you even knew that she had a love 
affair—still has it, I suppose. It isn’t a thing Tom 
would have talked about—least of all to you, whose 
standards would be different about that sort of thing." 

“Love affair? Do you mean with another man?" 

“Most certainly I do. In this wicked metropolis 
such things aren't uncommon, and they can't be un¬ 
known even back in Schenectady-" 

“Harpersburg." 

“Harpersburg." 

“But Tom didn't do anything about it?" 

“He killed himself, though that came later and was 
mixed up with other things." 

“But he didn't do anything while he was alive?" 

“What did you expect him to do? Kill the other 
man as they do back in Buffalo?" 

“Perhaps not that, but did he keep on living with 
her?" 

“He did. Now let me explain. I said that Tom 
wouldn’t talk about such a thing. But his wife was 

174 


SOUND AND FURY 
different. She not only talked about it to anyone who 
would listen to her, but she wrote about it as well/' 

'Talked? Wrote?” 

"Yes. Poetry. Yards of it. Fathoms of it. You 
can find the stuff in Dawn and Revolt and a couple of 
other magazines. Some of it was pretty good poetry, 
too.” 

"And Tom went on living with her?” 

"That’s the point of it. That’s what she wrote her 
poetry about. She was in love with them both. Tom 
was her 'slender, drooping willow’—the other fellow 
was her 'gnarled and massive oak.’ She insisted, in her 
poetry, that she needed them both. That is why she 
stuck to Tom and why he stuck to her.” 

"Great God! It must have been unendurable!” 

"So Tom finally found it.” 

It was terribly hot in the restaurant and Goody took 
out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. 

"I don’t know what to say,” he declared. "Is this a 
nightmare? Has New York gone crazy? Do things 
like this go on all the time? Wasn’t there anybody to 
say to Tom: 'She’s making a fool of you. You’re 
making a fool of yourself. Get out of it!’? Couldn’t 
he see things sanely? Did he believe in this poppy¬ 
cock about her loving them both and needing them 
both?” 

"My dear Mr. Guthrie, you approach this problem 
with a number of preconceived ideas, doubtless derived 
from a lifetime of good works in Memphis,” said Gage, 
emptying his teacup for the tenth time. "One of these 
preconceived ideas relates to monogamy. You forget 
175 


SOUND AND FURY 

that, to date, it is merely an experiment, and that from 
all indications the experiment will not be successful/' 

“That's all very well, but-" 

“Just a moment, Mr. Guthrie. Tom, having left 
Evansville in his early youth, did not share your pre¬ 
conceived ideas on this subject. As a matter of fact, 
he was employing some of his spare time to conduct an 

experiment of his own-" 

“Tom?" 

“But assuredly! Who else?" The effect of the wine 
was plainly perceptible by now, and Gage’s words were 
thick and difficult to recognize. “Strangely enough, it 
was not a married woman. You start. That is well. 
Why should it be a married woman? you ask yourself, 
rallying to your support all the moral precepts of South 
Bend. But, my dear Mr. Guthrie, the fact remains 
that it almost always is a married woman." 

“It's getting late," said Goody curtly, “and we’ll 
make better time if you omit all pleasantries connected 
with my birthplace, which is Harpersburg." 

“Harpersburg, of course. But it was not, I repeat, 
a married woman. Nor was it an actress—that is, a 
real actress. She took small parts at the Attic Theatre 
—not Attic in the sense of the glory that was Greece, 

but in-" 

“Well?" 

“There you have it. This pseudo-actress was a most 
remarkable person. She was the reincarnation of all 
the vamps of history from Cleopatra to the flickering" 
—he stumbled over this and had to attempt it three 
times—“creatures of the films. She didn’t walk—she 

176 


SOUND AND FURY 
slank—or should it be slunk? Every gesture was an 
invitation. She exuded physical vitality. When you 
came into her presence you were conscious of an ach¬ 
ing void—nothing else. She was not pretty and many 
men found her repellent. But, speaking as an adver¬ 
tising man, 1 considered her an excellent advertisement 
of the biologic process/' 

"God!” 

"Precisely. Many persons have identified the two. 
But time presses. You are in haste to return to—I 
think it was Toledo you said. This godly creature, as 
you insist upon calling her, soon palled upon poor Tom. 
After the first week, I believe, he was tired of her. That 
was unfortunate. Otherwise, she would have tired of 
him. But he tired first, and that was a challenge to 
the godliness within her. 

"Besides, Tom wasn't the sort of person who dropped 
things very easily. As you see, he didn't drop his 
wife, greatly to the astonishment of all Milwaukee, 
and as for dropping Cleo—that would have been about 
as easy as getting rid of dandruff. The climax came 

when his wife objected-” 

"This is too much!” protested Goody. "Do you 
mean that his wife had the cheek to object to anything 

Tom might do, when she-” 

"Of course I mean to say it,” returned the other. 
"That is a wife's main function—to object. The mere 
fact that she herself may be objectionable has absolutely 
no bearing on the case. It does not in the least prevent 
her from exercising all her ordinary prerogatives, the 
greatest of which is—to object. That is why 1 have 
177 



SOUND AND FURY 

not seen my own dear wife for two years—or is it three? 
How many years has it been since I left my wife?” he 
called out suddenly to the proprietor of the restaurant. 

There was no one else in the place at this time, but 
the public manner of the interrogation startled Goody. 
The restaurateur, however, took the matter calmly. 
“Five years,” he replied without looking up from the 
Italian newspaper he was reading. 

“How time does fly!” ejaculated Gage. “I would 
have sworn it wasn’t more than three. You see how 
life passes. Five years ago I was living with my wife, 
and now I am exchanging maudlin griefs with a resident 
of Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and all points West.” 
He buried his head in his hands and wept. 

Clearly, there was nothing more to be obtained from 
him, and Goody was annoyed and disgusted. 

“Come on, let’s go home,” he said to the other, and 
shook him roughly by the shoulder. Gage responded 
unwillingly and got to his feet. 

“What’s the check?” Goody demanded of the pro¬ 
prietor, but the other shook his head when Gage directed 
at him a volley of what Goody assumed was Italian. 

“You are a guest of mine,” Gage explained. “Your 
money won’t pass here.” Then he said to the 
restaurant-keeper: “Just put that down on my bill, 
D’Annunzio.” 

Gage shook his head sadly as the pair left the 
restaurant. “Good old D’Annunzio!” he muttered. 
“He’s the best friend I have left. Who, save him, 
would rally to my support were I to raise the red ban- 

178 


SOUND AND FURY 
ner of revolution? My faithful D’Annunzio and I 
against the world!” 

‘This is my car,” said Gage a moment later, point¬ 
ing to a villainous-looking taxi that waited outside the 
door. “Good evening, Oswald.” 

“Good evening, Mr. Gage,” responded the driver 
gravely. 

“Where may Oswald and I take you?” Gage in¬ 
quired of Goody. 

“Thanks, I’ll find my way back to the hotel alone.” 

“I don’t want to be insistent, but it would be a 
pleasure to drop you there.” 

“Thanks, but I want to make part of the way on 
foot.” 

“If you prefer it. Good night.” 

“Good night.” 

The taxi was off, but Goody heard the fare shouting 
directions to the driver. It turned at the corner and 
came back past Goody slowly. Gage leaned half-way 
out and shouted: “If you must know it, I come from 
Minneapolis myself!” 

The driver stepped on the gas and the taxi was off. 

Goody remembered how religious and timid Tom 
had been as a boy. So it had come to this—free love. 
Without understanding the tragedy any better than he 
had before coming to New York, he nevertheless 
summed up the matter in that way. Free love—this 
new kind of freedom that people, especially those in the 
East and especially the writing, artistic sort of peo- 
179 


SOUND AND FURY 

pie, were all talking about—was at the bottom of it 
all. It wasn’t freedom—it was licence. He had read 
what an English prelate had said about writers’ “neigh¬ 
ing after each other’s wives.” And this was the way 
it ended! 

Tom’s death reinforced in Goody’s mind what he 
chose to regard as the lesson of Silver Lake. He would 
have nothing to do with romance. It was all a sham. 
Like the devil, romance had many disguises. It could 
come as a cook tricked out in the dress of a prostitute, 
or a prostitute garbed as a wife. It was all one. 
Romance and this new kind of freedom were alike and 
the same. He would get along without them. Some¬ 
times he felt that it would be highly preferable for Con 
to be a little more human—instead of dispassionate 
and almost scientific in such matters. But now he 
knew that Con’s way was best. He felt closer to Con 
than ever before and realized his enormous need of her. 
She represented stability in a world where writers 
neighed after each other’s wives and young men com¬ 
mitted suicide because they were entangled in the in¬ 
tricate nets of free-love intrigues. 

Not that Goody told himself that he no longer be¬ 
lieved in freedom for himself. In marrying he had, of 
course, set limits to his relations of a certain kind— 
limits no decent man would trangress. But in other 
respects he chose to regard himself as superior to the 
moral and ethical codes of Harpersburg, his own guide, 
his own judge. In time, however, this was to become 
only an empty fiction and, like all fictions, it finally 
was forgotten and disowned by its very author. 


180 


VIII 


M ARRIAGE with Con held one important sur¬ 
prise for Goody. Con did not believe in birth 
control; she regarded it as contrary to the 
tenets of her religion. Goody was fond of children and 
looked forward to having them—three, four, half a 
dozen, perhaps. But he had never thought of the pos¬ 
sibility of unlimited production. If they had one a 
year and if—well, they might easily have fifteen or 
twenty. The prospect was appalling. He had always 
supposed that Con, who accepted the feminist point of 
view on so many matters, would adopt it here. But 
it seemed that feminism did not count when it came 
into conflict with Con’s Church. 

The prospect of a score of children was a fairly dis¬ 
tant one, however, and would not have distressed Goody 
greatly. But Con became pregnant after the first weeks 
of their marriage. He had always supposed that a 
decent interval should prevail between marriage and 
pregnancy. There was something ludicrous in this 
haste. It left them so little time together before the 
minor annoyances of that condition developed and 
gave their marriage an entirely different colouring. 

Not that Con had made a bride of either the demure 
or the responsive type. ... It had been a very precise, 
181 


SOUND AND FURY 

sociological honeymoon—on her part, at least—except 
upon that single item of birth control. 

The prospect of becoming a father had a sobering 
effect upon Goody. He had always regarded the 
printing-plant in a somewhat cavalier fashion. Now 
he determined to make a supreme effort to understand 
the figures on his balance sheet and to find out where 
he really was, financially speaking. Hitherto, he had 
wandered in a kind of monetary maze. He had the 
idea that he was making money and he knew that there 
always was cash on hand when he wanted it, but be¬ 
yond this his knowledge did not extend. 

Now he shut himself up for an afternoon with old 
Thompson, the rather patronizing book-keeper, and went 
over the figures. Incredible! The plant was earning 
at the rate of over eighteen thousand dollars a year— 
more than his father had ever made it yield! There 
was no mistake about it. Thompson patiently ex¬ 
plained the various items. The totals tallied. The 
proof was sufficient and complete. 

“Draw a hundred for yourself, Bill,” said Goody in 
amazement. “Where on earth does the money come 
from?” 

There was something ironical about it. Goody's 
father had been anything but a methodical, purposeful 
business man, yet he had wanted to make money to 
satisfy the demands of his wife. Also, he had had a 
certain fondness for money for its own sake. Yet he 
had only half succeeded. But his son, to whom money 
meant very little, seemed on a fair way to a remarkable 

182 


SOUND AND FURY 
financial success, judged by Harpersburg standards. 
Goody considered himself affluent when he was able 
to lose thirty or forty dollars at poker without minding 
it particularly. Further than this his vision in money 
matters did not go. Besides, Con saw to it that he had 
few opportunities to play the game that, winning or 
losing, he enjoyed so much. As for her, she had nearly 
two thousand dollars of her own a year—money left 
to her by her grandfather—and her own tastes were as 
simple as her dress. In fact, most of her income went 
to the various charitable causes for which she worked, 
and Goody’s own contribution to the Harpersburg 
Community Chest had been put at five hundred dollars 
a year; he was the youngest man in town to give so 
large a sum. 

Though Goody had had only the vaguest idea of 
what the printing-plant was earning for him, he had 
felt justified in making so large a contribution, because 
he did not think they would spend more than six or 
seven thousand a year—at the utmost, eight thousand. 
They were living very modestly in a five-room apart¬ 
ment with a coloured maid who “slept out.” His con¬ 
tribution to the Community Chest was not exactly in 
keeping with their style of living, but money and the 
usual luxuries one bought with it seemed unimport¬ 
ant to him, and the big contribution was an easy way 
to please Con. Now he was half sorry he had not 
made it larger—the money seemed to be coming in so 
easily. 

Not that they were stinting themselves in any way. 
The apartment in which they lived rented for $110 a 
183 


SOUND AND FURY 

month, and they could have obtained a large, comfort¬ 
able house for half that sum—the one in which the elder 
Guthries had lived had cost less than that. But apart¬ 
ments—and maids who “slept in”—were scarce in 
Harpersburg, while houses were plentiful, which ac¬ 
counted for the disparity in the rents. Goody himself 
would have liked nothing better than a big, old-fash¬ 
ioned house with a hard-working darky who would tend 
the furnace in winter, but Con hadn't for the present 
the least idea of being burdened with all the bother 
incidental to keeping a house running on an even keel. 
The inevitable compromise in favour of an apartment 
was the result. However, Goody comforted himself 
with the thought that when, as seemed likely, they had 
five or six children, they would not be able to find an 
apartment large enough to house the brood. 

These were some of the ideas that occupied Goody's 
mind as he looked at the figures that Thompson had 
left behind. It really was a lot of money, and it might 
come in handy if they were to have a dozen or so 
children. 

That evening he told Con of his discovery. She was 
as little concerned about it as he. “Why, you're mighty 
clever, Goody,” she commented. “How did you do it?” 

“Blessed if I know!” He laughed half guiltily. 
Praise was not unpleasant, but he would have liked to 
feel that in some small degree it had been earned. “1 
don't deserve much credit for it—I let things run pretty 
much the way they want to down at the shop—they 
sort of take care of themselves. It all comes from 

184 


SOUND AND FURY 
trusting in God. If you’re an atheist you don’t de¬ 
serve any luck.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t joke about such things, dear.” 

"‘I’m not joking. I’m not at all sure I’m an atheist 
any longer. When I looked at the ledger I said to my¬ 
self : ‘Well, maybe there is a God after all.’ ” 

Con was angry and tried to look pained. Goody had 
gone farther than usual. Religion was not merely re¬ 
ligion to Con—it was that plus respectability and 
stability. When Goody flouted religion it was the 
same as though he had spoken disdainfully of the State 
Board of Charities or the Children’s Court. In fact, 
these two were one with religion in Con’s mind, and 
when he doubted God he was doubting everything in 
which she believed. Unlike Goody, she had no firm 
ground of support within herself; she was constantly 
forced to seek outside props from the Church, respec¬ 
tability, and philanthropy. 

Goody was making more money than his father had 
made because, for Harpersburg in those boom times that 
still endured, he was a better business man. In those 
days the best business man was he who worried least 
and who interfered least with those blind forces that were 
seemingly intent upon making wealthy every man with 
anything beyond his own labour to sell. Also, though 
Goody only half realized this, he had become an un¬ 
usually potent missionary among other business men for 
his plant. His father had been popular in a way, but 
there had always been something acid about the elder 
185 


SOUND AND FURY 

Guthrie; he had a bad reputation for irony, and men 
unconsciously were afraid of his biting tongue. Goody 
gave himself freely, easily, to those about him. So long 
as people did not annoy him, he liked them. He had 
nothing to conceal, nothing to be afraid of. Though he 
refused to join the Knights of the Red Star, Goody 
saw no objection to the imbecilic Rotary Club—which 
was not imbecilic for him, incidentally, since he was 
the only printer permitted to belong—and the influ¬ 
ence gained in this way meant dollars and cents to his 
plant. 

Also, Goody was becoming more tolerant. At first 
he had been inclined to laugh at the sleek little Babbitts 
in the Rotary Club, with their slogan of “A Bigger, Bet¬ 
ter Harpersburg—Population 300,000—1930/' But 
the very solemnity with which they reiterated their oily 
mouthings about hustle and better business methods, 
their tireless insistence, the determination and vigour 
with which they pursued their aims—contrasted with 
his own haphazard business procedure—finally im¬ 
pressed him. He was never inclined to be dogmatic 
about anything that had to do with money or business 
—who knew but what they were right? 

So he attended regularly the weekly luncheons of the 
Rotary Club and listened to the dreary platitudes in 
the speeches that followed—even, on one occasion, at¬ 
tempted to add a few of his own. This was after he 
discovered that he was making $18,000 a year and had 
come to consider himself somewhat seriously. The 
Rotary Club was conducting an agitation—strongly 
though it might disapprove of all other “agitators”—to 

186 


SOUND AND FURY 
obtain a new railroad station for the city. Goody, who 
had noticed that previous speakers always found some 
way to bring their own businesses into the discussion, 
was describing what he conceived to be the ideal station 
in terms of ems, picas, points, and ornamental borders. 
Suddenly, however, he realized that he cared very 
little about the whole affair and less about the people 
to whom he was talking. A new station meant nothing 
to him—he even found that there was something fa¬ 
miliar and friendly in the dignified lines of the old 
Union Depot. He wound up his speech abruptly and 
sat down, glaring defiance. However, he continued to 
attend the luncheons of the club, though he did not 
make any more speeches for several months. 

In the social-welfare schemes of Con, Goody took a 
greater interest. He found himself a member of the 
board of directors at the settlement house where he 
had formerly led a boys’ club. Goody had curiosity 
enough, incidentally, to learn what had happened to 
some of the boys in whom he had had the duty of in¬ 
spiring lofty ideals and fine moral sentiments. The 
prizefighter, who had been so superior to him at boxing, 
was a decided success; he had fought recently in New 
York and, according to the newspapers, had received 
$5,000 for his night’s work. Another of the boys bore 
the degree of doctor of dental surgery; still another was 
about to become a lawyer, and Goody knew that he 
would soon flirt with disbarment. A few were working 
at skilled trades, another was reputed to have made a 
good deal of money bootlegging, and one was in jail 
187 


SOUND AND FURY 

for burglary. All in all, thought Goody, a very ex¬ 
cellent showing and one he need not be ashamed of any¬ 
where. “All 1 need is a clergyman to round out the 
outfit/' he told Con, and the latter had puckered her 
lips disapprovingly. 

But Goody did not confine his efforts to the settle¬ 
ment. He really put something of himself into re¬ 
habilitation work for wounded veterans and he per¬ 
suaded the union to permit him to employ two in his 
plant. Despite his unwillingness to ask money from 
others, he solicited funds for the Community Chest. 
“Dig deep, you sinner," he would say, laughingly trying 
to persuade himself that he did not object to the role 
he was playing, yet in his heart he found it detestable. 

“But they must contribute to the Community Chest," 
Con told him. “There isn’t any reason why a few 
people should bear all the burden. And this way we 
have to solicit funds just once a year and there 
isn’t that continual nagging and begging we used to 
have.’’ 

“But the trouble with these old codgers," her hus¬ 
band protested, “is that when they give me money they 
do it with the air of doing me a favour. I don’t want 
any favours from them." 

“You’re not taking any favours from them. You’re 
doing your duty to the community and they ought to 
do theirs. If they haven’t any sense of their respon¬ 
sibility, they must be made to feel it." 

Verily Con was a good Christian—if Christianity can 
be divorced from Christ’s love and sympathy and hu¬ 
mility. These played no part in her social or religious 

188 


SOUND AND FURY 
faith. She was generous with money, for money meant 
very little to her. She was willing to slave for what she 
conceived to be a good cause, to expend for it tireless 
effort and all her time. But of her very self she gave 
nothing. She was apart. She never lost herself. She 
remained untouched. Her attitude was never anything 
but scientific. She would have moved heaven and 
earth—that is, Harpersburg and the State capital—to 
obtain a new home for imbecile children, but she could 
not understand how Goody could respect the human- 
mould so much that he would gladly have killed all the 
imbecile children and those who bred them. 

Sometimes a touch of the old Goody came out at un¬ 
expected moments, as the Silverbergs, who had not 
known the old Goody, discovered. Silverberg had left 
his wife and child and refused to contribute anything 
to their support. Con was interested in the case. Be¬ 
cause court procedure is always cumbersome, she en¬ 
deavoured to reach an agreement with the man in an 
informal way, but he refused even to discuss the matter 
with her, slamming the door of his mother’s house, 
where he lived, in Con’s face. 

“If I could just talk to him, I know I could persuade 
him to do the right thing,” said Con, and, judging by 
all past performances, she was right. Goody himself 
knew that she was a difficult person to refuse. 

“I’ll go with you to-morrow,” Goody told her. “If 
a man is along, it will impress him.” 

This time Silverberg was not at home, but his mother 
said he would be back in a few minutes. She quite 
189 


SOUND AND FURY 

agreed with Con that her son should give his wife an 
allowance. 

“So you're here again?" was Silverberg’s greeting 
when he caught sight of Con perched on one of his 
mothers dining-room chairs. 

“I thought you might feel more like talking this over 
with me to-day, so I came back," was her diplomatic 
reply. 

“1 don't want to talk about it, and it’s none of your 
business anyway," the man assured her with a snarl. 

“You’re talking to a lady, young fellow, and you’d 
better not be impertinent," Goody put in. A flush was 
coming over his face and his voice was staccato. Con 
pressed her hand warningly upon his knee; she knew 
that she should not have brought him, but now it was 
too late. 

“I didn’t ask her to come here. For my part she can 
get out and get out damn quick." 

Goody rose menacingly. Silverberg put up his fists. 
The next moment they were exchanging blows. Silver- 
berg’s head banged against the wall. His mother 
screamed, and the scream was taken up by younger 
brothers and sisters who had run in from other rooms. 
Goody steadied himself, drew back his fist, and caught 
the fellow on the jaw. He fell to the floor. 

“I’m sorry I had to do that," Goody apologized to 
Mrs. Silverberg. “Your son’s not hurt much." This 
did not suffice to still the wailing. Then he helped Con 
to the door. He remembered her condition and re¬ 
alized that he had been a fool. Fortunately, Con’s 
nerves were good and the scene had not affected her. 

190 


SOUND AND FURY 

The next day Goody was sitting in his office, with the 
door open as usual, when a policeman entered. “Is 
there a George Guthrie here?” that official demanded. 

“Come in, old man,” Goody called out. He had not 
the faintest suspicion of what the errand meant. 

“I’ve a warrant for you,” the policeman told him. 

“A what? A warrant? What's the joke?” 

“No joke.” The policeman handed him a paper 
which recited the various injuries he had inflicted upon 
one Hyman Silverberg, constituting assault in the first 
degree. Goody whistled when he read it. 

“Say, you don’t look like a bad fellow,” the patrol¬ 
man condescended to say. “Why did you beat up a 
poor guy like that?” 

“It’s a long story—he got fresh,” said Goody, and 
then a line from Conan Doyle came back to him: 
“Anything you say will be used against you.” 

“Well,” he demanded finally, “when do I have to 
show up?” 

“Show up?” 

“Yes, come to court.” 

“Why you’re coming with me right now to the police 
station.” 

“The hell you say! Well, let me call up my lawyer 
anyway.” 

“Oh, you can do that, all right. Got a cigar?” 

“Sure, help yourself.” Goody gave him a box and 
reached for the phone. Fortunately Sid Haber was in 
his office. He promised to meet Goody immediately at 
the police station. 

There it was an easy matter to arrange for bail, and 
191 


SOUND AND FURY 

Goody went back with Haber to the latter’s office, where 
they discussed the case. After Goody had told the 
story, Haber commented: 

“So you went into a man’s home without any process 
of law and demanded that he pay his wife a certain 
sum of money weekly—also without any legal au¬ 
thority, because good intentions have nothing to do 
with the law. And when he refused, you beat him up.” 

“Not much.” 

“They’ll attend to that. He’ll probably be in bed a 
month from his injuries.” 

“What can I do?” 

“This criminal action isn’t all.” 

“More trouble?” 

“Of course. If you persist in beating up inoffensive 
citizens you have to take the consequences. They’re 
certain to bring civil suit as well—for a couple of 
thousand dollars, unless I miss my guess. He’s prob¬ 
ably got some shyster who won’t be at all moderate in 
his demands.” 

“What had I better do?” 

“Compromise it and get him to withdraw the crim¬ 
inal charge.” 

“I'd like to fight it.” 

“You haven’t a leg to stand on.” 

Goody thought a moment. “All right. Go ahead 
and compromise. How much will it cost?” 

“I can probably fix it up for a couple of hundred 
dollars—maybe less.” 

“Cheap at the price. Go ahead, Sid, and settle it.” 

In the course of the next few days the matter was ad- 

192 


SOUND AND FURY 
justed for a mere $150. Unfortunately, there was no 
way to keep it out of the papers, but these were friendly 
to Goody now and treated the story rather humorously. 
The accounts of the fracas were such as to depict Goody 
as a somewhat unworldly Sir Galahad who had found 
one wrong that could not be righted very easily. There 
was nothing in the newspapers to remind anyone of 
Silver Lake. That was what had been in Haber’s mind 
when he urged Goody to settle the matter with as little 
fuss as possible. Shrewd and politically ruthless as he 
was—even at times unscrupulous—the older man cared 
for Goody’s interests as he would have for his son’s. 
He did not send Goody a bill for the bother to which he 
was put in this trivial matter, and when Goody re¬ 
minded him of this, Haber sent him a bill for five 
dollars. 

Of course, the young man had to endure a great deal 
of rather good-natured joshing for his assault upon the 
delinquent husband, and Con’s friends often called him 
upon the phone to complain of their husbands—one 
wanted a new dress which Harry would not buy her; 
another protested that Dick snored at night—but Goody 
was accustomed by now to being led into difficulties by 
his temper and bore these feeble jests with equanimity. 
However, he felt that a decent limit had been reached 
when his printers at a meeting collected a purse of 
thirty-nine cents which was set aside to “defray the 
costs of any punitive damages that our respected em¬ 
ployer may be called upon to pay on this or any other 
occasion.” 

193 


SOUND AND FURY 

The Rev. Rufus D. Harris, who at that time was 
Con’s pet clergyman, added his note to the symphony 
by seeking, when he called, to engage Goody in a dis¬ 
cussion of the heavyweight situation and the problem 
of picking a suitable opponent for the champion. Mr. 
Harris did this in all seriousness, for he was a true rep¬ 
resentative of the modern Church, sophisticated, at 
ease, urbane, and it was his pride to be able to discuss 
with the laity topics of current interest with the same 
thoroughness and zeal that his forbears had exhibited 
in the dissection of theological problems. But the Rev. 
Mr. Harris was somewhat surprised in Goody’s case, 
for he found that the other had never seen a prize-fight 
and did little more than glance at the headlines which 
chronicled the rise and wane of pugilistic prowess. “A 
manly sport,” was the clergyman’s final comment, and 
he shook his head in despair over young Guthrie’s ap¬ 
parent degeneracy. 

Mr. Harris was a newcomer from the East; he ar¬ 
rived at the precise moment when Con and Dr. Stall¬ 
ings, the brilliant young Universalist minister, had 
disputed about the management of the Home for In¬ 
curables. It was a case of off with the old love and on 
with the new—this in no irreverent tone, for the chief 
thing that these attachments meant to Con was that 
they enhanced her prestige. Since clergymen, more 
than any other kind of men, took an interest in her 
sociological projects, it was natural for Con to become 
intimate with them and, from time to time, to select 
one who would bask in her particular favour—and 
throw the weight of his influence behind her ideas. 

194 


SOUND AND FURY 
Sometimes those favoured ones succeeded each other in 
rapid succession—they had even included, in the course 
of time, a Jewish rabbi. For Con was nothing if not 
broad-minded on the subject of religion. Granted, of 
course, that all except High Church Episcopalians were 
to be damned most effectively in the next world, she 
was willing in this world to allow all others (with the 
possible exception of Goody) to seek perdition accord¬ 
ing to their own inclinations. 

There may have been one other reason why Con en¬ 
joyed the society of these rectors, priests, pastors, 
rabbis, and others. In Harpersburg, D. H. Lawrence 
was merely a nasty writer—Freud was only a name. 
The new dispensation that has rendered marriage in the 
metropolis so easy and endurable was unknown in the 
smaller town. Goody had had a side-glimpse into that 
metropolitan freedom—and had shuddered. It was 
madness, lunacy. In Harpersburg marriage might not 
be eternal, but while it lasted the conventions were ob¬ 
served. One man did not take another man's wife to 
theatre—he hardly walked with her upon the street. A 
woman, except in the presence of her husband, did 
scarcely more than pass the time of day with another 
man. Goody, meeting one of Con's friends downtown, 
would never have dreamed of asking her to lunch with 
him. The mere spectacle of husbands and wives going 
different ways at night would have been considered sin 
of the vilest kind—so pure was Harpersburg’s imagina¬ 
tion, untainted by twentieth-century eroticism. Once 
a woman married, it closed to her the doors to free, in¬ 
formal, human intercourse with other men. Goody had 
195 


SOUND AND FURY 

sensed the fact, when he heard of Tom’s death, that he 
would form no more friendships of that kind with men 
—and that henceforth friendship with women or any 
real understanding of them was impossible. To Con 
the world of men had never meant as much as women 
had meant to Goody, but it is conceivable that she too 
felt something of the same sort. And only clergymen 
were exempt from this queer taboo. 

If Tom Penny could have watched Goody and Con 
during the first year of their married life, he would have 
asserted that Con’s assaults upon the other’s Goody¬ 
ness were aided by the fact that in his boyhood Goody 
had come to look upon her as someone far above him— 
as someone shining in the crystalline light of virtue 
while he was wallowing in the darkness of iniquity. 
This had been largely a boyish pose—Byron is the 
hero of every lad who knows who Byron was. A boy 
never feels himself so irresistibly romantic as when he 
is certain he is damned—though perhaps not inevitably 
damned. Yet even a pose has power; if it be main¬ 
tained long enough, it will persuade the poseur. Thus 
what had begun as a boyish affectation had come to be 
part of Goody’s mental make-up. The idea that Con 
was not only a superior person, but superior to him in 
all except the most trivial details of practical existence, 
was by now ingrained in him. Even when her ideas— 
as on the subject of birth control—did not please him, 
he was impelled to concede her high seriousness and her 
obedience to her principles in the face of her own com¬ 
fort and convenience. 


196 


SOUND AND FURY 

And as proof of Con's superiority he could look both 
to the past and to the present. Whenever he had 
flagrantly outraged Con’s ideas, whenever he had es¬ 
caped from the circle of her opinion, he had been pun¬ 
ished for it. He might forget the death he had caused 
at Silver Lake—for human life did not seem immeas¬ 
urably precious to him—but he could never obliterate 
the humiliation he himself had suffered there. The 
present was just as eloquent in Con’s behalf. He need 
only recall his former friends, who to her were beyond 
the pale, and contrast them with Con’s own intimates 
to understand that Con’s way of life must be right and 
his former way wrong. In the case of Tom a wave of 
madness had swept across the man—it was all confused 
—he did not judge his old friend. But the others! 
Franklin was dying of a loathsome disease. Harry had 
married a drab and was exiled from the world. Bruce, 
who could have stepped into a high position in Stand¬ 
ard Oil, had been pensioned by his family and, living at 
the Harpersburg Hotel, was devoting himself to liquor 
and horses. Steve had gone into politics; he was a 
State Senator and active at the capital in opposing 
Con’s welfare measures. Only Bob had made much of 
a success, but his way of spending was blatant and 
smacked too much of the metropolitan manner. 

Con’s friends shone by contrast. They had been care¬ 
fully selected with the eye of a connoisseur. There was 
a sprinkling of the bluebloods of the State—that was 
for tone. Admittance was not to be gained by wealth 
alone, but it happened that there were one or two per¬ 
sons in Harpersburg—Miss Bee Blodgett, for instance 
197 


SOUND AND FURY 

—in whom the possession of money was united to other 
qualities of taste and intellect (and, in this case, eccen¬ 
tricity). There was a bespectacled lady poet whose 
husband was an editorial-writer on the Tribune —a vol¬ 
ume of her verse had actually been issued by an Eastern 
publishing-house. There was a violinist—her family 
simply would not permit her to go upon the professional 
concert stage—a cartoonist on the Post, a politician of 
the reformer type, and several persons whose chief in¬ 
terest, like Con’s, was in sociological problems. Al¬ 
most every one of these persons had a wife or husband, 
as the case might be, so that, all told, they were suf¬ 
ficient in numbers to form the nucleus of a salon. Un¬ 
fortunately, there was scarcely room in Con’s apartment 
to hold one, and Miss Bee Blodgett had too many 
peculiarities for her home ever to become a popular 
meeting-place, so there was continual talk of founding 
a Harpersburg Fine Arts Club that would have a club¬ 
house, or at least rooms, of its own, where the elect 
might gather and discuss the reparations problem, the 
ship subsidy, and the crude impertinence of Sherwood 
Anderson. In short, the group was a typical one, such 
as exists, under God’s everlasting mercy, in every 
provincial town of this or any other country. But to 
contrast with them—and they never completely suc¬ 
ceeded in fooling him—Goody could offer only a crew 
of wasters, idlers, and drunkards. 

When Goody fell to thinking about the approaching 
responsibilities of fatherhood, he decided to go to see 
Dr. Carruthers. It had been more than a year since 

198 


SOUND AND FURY 
he had paid the physician a visit, and he found that 
Carruthers had aged rapidly. The old fellow’s face 
lighted when he saw Goody, but he said not a word— 
merely took out his stethoscope and listened at Goody’s 
chest. Then he thumped the young man on the back. 

'There’s been a marked improvement!” he declared. 
"War and marriage seem to have agreed with you.” 

"Why differentiate?” laughed the other. "Well, how 
many years do you give me this time? I remember 
that when you said good-bye to me before the war, you 
told me to make all arrangements with Decker [a local 
undertaker].” 

"Science is infallible,” smiled the doctor, "but its 
prognostications aren’t. In all decency and fairness 
to me, you ought to be dead by now.” 

"Sorry not to be able to oblige. I never felt better 
in my life. Is my heart O.K. again?” 

"Not O. K.,” the physician told him. "It will never 
be absolutely normal. But the murmur is less pro¬ 
nounced, and if you take anything like proper care of 
yourself, you ought to live for a great many years.” 

"You always said, Doc, that I was born to be hanged. 
You weren’t right about me dying in the war, but—who 
knows?—you may turn out to have made a good guess 
the first time.” 

There was some more banter of that kind and then 
Goody asked the other: "How do you find things. 
Doc? Is the health of Harpersburg poor enough to 
suit you?” 

"You don’t see a bevy of patients in the outer office, 
do you?” the other asked in turn. "The truth is, I 
199 


SOUND AND FURY 

sort of retired from practice a couple of years ago, and 
now 1 wish I hadn’t/' 

Under a few more questions, Goody had the whole 
story—common enough in its general outlines. Or¬ 
dinarily Carruthers would never have told it to a pa¬ 
tient, but he was delighted to see Goody and dropped 
his usual reserve—also, he knew that the young man 
was no gossip. In thirty-five years of practice he had 
accumulated a modest fortune and had, as he put it, 
'sort of retired.” But he had not been smart enough 
not to play the other man’s game. He had speculated 
in wheat and cotton, which was bad enough, but he had 
also bought some worthless oil stocks. As a result, 
only five thousand dollars was left of the eighty thou¬ 
sand or more, and he had been compelled to resume 
active practice. But patients once dropped are not 
easily recaptured; Harpersburg had come to look upon 
him as a venerable antique and fees went to younger, 
more energetic practitioners. 

"Now that’s what I call hell!” exclaimed Goody. 
"I’m not much of a business man either, Doc, but I tell 
you what I did the other day. I went over my books 
and I learned I was making much more than I ever 
dreamed I would make. So I’m flush and you’re going 
to let me lend you something.” 

"Lend?” asked the doctor scornfully. "On what 
security?” 

"Security be damned! I don’t want security.” 

"But I don’t need cash, I tell you. I’ve still got five 
thousand dollars—and it’s in Liberty Bonds, too.” 

"Well, it’s going to stay there. You can’t draw on a 

200 


SOUND AND FURY 
final nest-egg like that. You're going to let me lend 
you a thousand dollars a year until your practice is 
back in shape again." 

“Bosh!” 

“Bosh, nothing! Doc, I'll esteem it a favour if you 
let me do this, and I'll tell you why. You don't think 
I have any affection for you, do you?—an old codger 
who's spent the last ten years telling me I'm likely to 
die at any minute. But I know that this is what my 
father would do if he were alive, and there's nothing 
would tickle him more than to have me do it in his 
place. So you'll let me do it and that's all there is 
about it. A thousand isn't much and if you need more 
you can have it.” 

Goody did not discuss the matter further. He wrote 
out the cheque and left it on the physician's desk. 

Goody meant to have no secrets from Con. He men¬ 
tioned the loan to her in a very casual manner. Some¬ 
thing in the way in which she received it told him that 
it was not altogether acceptable to her. There was no 
real objection—just a “certainly, dear, if you think you 
can afford-” 

“Afford? Of course I can afford it.” 

“Well, then, it's probably all right.” 

It was not that Con was penurious. Had Goody 
given a thousand dollars outright to any organized 
charity—in which she had some hand—she would have 
approved. But this way of doing charity was not her 
way. She would have waited until Dr. Carruthers ap¬ 
plied for admittance to an old men’s home and then 
201 



SOUND AND FURY 

would have treated him with gracious benevolence and 
spoken a word in his behalf to the superintendent. 
"But of course we must deal with all the inmates alike, 
and it would be wrong to show any favouritism/' she 
would have added. 


202 


IX 


T HE verdict of Harpersburg was that Con had 
made a real man of Goody. There was no se¬ 
vere criticism implied in this phrase—it meant 
merely that Goody had been regarded as a youth some¬ 
what turbulent and volatile—though on the whole well- 
meaning—and that now he had sobered down to the 
responsibilities of business and marriage. The Silver- 
berg episode was Goody’s final ebullition; from that 
time on, his conduct was hardly to be distinguished 
from that of any prosperous resident of Harpersburg 
from twenty-five to fifty years of age. 

Apparently the restraint sat lightly on him; he did 
not even have to seek release in alcohol. No bootleg 
liquor entered their home; they possessed a dozen bot¬ 
tles or so of rare old bourbon that the elder Guthrie had 
bought in pre-prohibition days, but this was reserved 
for cases of illness or special occasions. At such times 
Con would carefully pour out a small drink for Goody, 
and then return the bottle to the closet where it was 
kept under lock—a tribute to the fine epicurean qual¬ 
ities of their Negro maid. Nor did Goody regret the 
days when his ration had been nearer a quart a day 
than a drink a month. He did not exactly share Con’s 
203 


SOUND AND FURY 

opinion that men who drank too much were “horrible,” 
but he looked on whisky as part of the tomfoolery of 
his boyhood that he had left behind him. “Whisky 
never did anyone much good,” he would remark sagely, 
and feel himself infinitely wiser and better than the 
devil-may-care fellow who had played his game ac¬ 
cording to his own rules. 

Much more important than this was the fact that 
Goody was beginning to feel that society, to put it 
generally, and Harpersburg, to be specific, had some 
hold upon him. After all, virtue is more contagious 
than vice. If a man is resolved to be wicked, let him 
by all means shun the company of the godly. Virtue 
can walk triumphant amid the haunts of vice, but the 
metal of the latter is more easily affected. It was im¬ 
possible to be married to Con, whose constant theme 
was that we must live not for ourselves but to fulfil our 
duties, without taking on something of this colouring. 
Goody had never been half so much impressed with 
the importance of duty as he had been with the neces¬ 
sity of gratifying himself; even when he went to war, 
it was not with the idea that he was fulfilling his duty 
to his country, but merely because he wanted the ex¬ 
citement. Now, however, he found himself thinking 
about the duty of others, which was one step toward a 
realization of his own. 

Goody was probably in this mood when, one night at 
the theatre with Con, he saw Junior Ethridge, an old 
friend. Con inquired of her husband who was the girl 
with Junior. 


204 


SOUND AND FURY 

“She’s a stenographer at his factory/’ Goody replied. 
“He takes her around a good bit.” 

“That’s out-and-out impertinence on his part!” Con 
declared. 

“I don’t know anything against her/’ put in Goody 
hastily. 

“But-” 

“Well, I guess you’re right. He oughtn’t to do it.” 

“What do people say?” Con persisted. 

“They talk a bit.” 

“That shows you. It’s positively an insult for him 
to bring her here.” 

“I don’t guess he hears any of the talk. It's hurting 
him, too. Maybe I’d better speak to him about it.” 

“I don’t suppose that will do any good,” said Con 
with a sniff. If Ethridge had belonged to a different 
class, she would have understood very well how to curb 
his refractoriness. 

Goody did not get a chance to talk to Ethridge alone 
for more than a week. Then he happened to encounter 
him at the bank. 

“Come on up to my office,” Goody urged, and Eth¬ 
ridge, whose duties were no more arduous than those of 
Goody himself, consented. When the door was closed 
behind the pair. Goody began: 

“Look here, Junior, we’re old friends. I haven’t seen 
much of you the last couple of years, but I feel we’re 
friends just the same and that’s why I’m talking to you. 

“This thing’s none of my business—I know that— 
and if you want to tell me to shut up, go right ahead 
and do it and I won’t be in the least angry.” 

205 


SOUND AND FURY 

“All right/' Ethridge assented. “What’s all the 
shooting for?” 

“It’s that Miss Smith. People are talking about the 
way you take her every place. Don’t be angry—it’s 
none of my business—but I thought I ought to tell you. 
It’s hurting you a lot. You know how it is when peo¬ 
ple get to talking. Of course, no one knows anything 
against Miss Smith-” 

“No?” 

“Of course not. But you put her in a false position 
—taking her around every place where your friends 
see you together.” 

Goody stopped. Ethridge seemed to hesitate a mo¬ 
ment and then asked: 

“What do you think I ought to do?” 

“Well, if you ask me, I think you ought to do one 
thing or the other.” 

“What’s that?” 

“If you’re going to marry her, announce it and then 
nobody can say anything. But if you’re not going to 
marry her, don’t flaunt it—I mean, don’t take her to 
places where your friends will see you. You know 
what I mean—there are plenty of places here besides 
McLarren’s and the Harpersburg.” 

There was another moment of silence and then the 
other said: “Do you mind if I ask you something else, 
Goody?” 

“No, of course not.” Goody, thinking the worst was 
over, beamed. 

“If you had a sister, I don’t suppose you’d object 
to me taking her out occasionally without wanting to 

206 


SOUND AND FURY 
marry her. I mean—there’s nothing much wrong with 
me, is there?” 

“Of course not, old man!” Goody slapped him on 
the back. 

“And just because I didn’t want to marry her or she 
didn’t want to marry me, you wouldn’t suggest my tak¬ 
ing her to disreputable restaurants or hotels, would 
you ?” 

Goody was crest-fallen. “Now that’s not fair. 
Junior,” he argued. “Don’t make a fool out of me. I 
was just trying to be your friend and tell you what 
people were saying.” 

“I know you meant it well, Goody. Thanks.” 

He shook hands with the other and Goody protested. 
“Are you angry, Junior? 1 just wanted to be your 
friend.” 

“No, I’m not angry,” Ethridge said. “I know you 
were trying to do me a good turn.” 

“Honest I was,” said Goody. He hesitated a mo¬ 
ment. “Are you going to marry her, Junior?” 

“No, I don’t think we’ll marry.” 

A week later Goody heard of Ethridge’s marriage. 
He was puzzled, but he persuaded Con to call with him 
upon the other couple and even to invite them for din¬ 
ner. Con had as their other guests that night Miss Bee 
Blodgett and the Clive Warrens—people with whom 
the young girl, shy in the consciousness of her social 
inferiority, could not possibly feel at home. Goody 
did his best, but she hardly opened her mouth during 
the entire evening; she was even embarrassed and self- 
conscious at the table and handled the silver awk- 
207 


SOUND AND FURY 

wardly. "You see, she’s impossible,” was Con’s ver¬ 
dict, and outwardly Goody acquiesced in it. 

Few of Ethridge’s other friends took as much trouble 
on his behalf as Goody, and the new couple had a 
rather lonely time of it socially, for Ethridge fitted in 
no better with his wife’s friends than she did with his. 

Goody was also losing his cynical detachment from 
politics. Instead of regarding it merely as a game, a 
little less sportsmanlike than tennis and considerably 
less exciting than football, he was coming to believe 
that there were good and earnest men in public life who 
deserved his support and his active efforts. He was 
one of the gifted amateurs who rushed to support the 
candidacy of Herbert Hoover in 1920 and in Harpers- 
burg contributed his small share to the glorious mis¬ 
management of that gentleman’s pre-convention cam¬ 
paign. The name of Guthrie, with the memory of the 
elder Guthrie behind it, was an excellent one, and 
Goody himself was becoming increasingly popular. 
As such, he was promising political timber—especially 
so as he could be counted upon for a substantial cam¬ 
paign contribution—and the Republican boss of his 
county even offered Goody a nomination to the Legis¬ 
lature that would have meant certain election. Goody, 
however, did not accept it, for he did not wish to be 
away from Harpersburg for long periods, but he was 
pleased by this tangible evidence of his prominence. 

If Goody had desired an active political career he 
would have found in Con an excellent ally, for she was 
no mean politician herself and, with her mother, prac- 

208 


SOUND AND FURY 
tically controlled the "welfare machine’" that had been 
built up to support various kinds of allegedly human¬ 
itarian legislation. Upon Goody’s enthusiasm for 
Hoover, for decency in politics and for good causes 
generally, Con looked with entire approval. Politics 
were "horrible”—but not when they were conducted on 
a plane of high respectability and when it was possible 
to state political aims in ethical and sociological terms. 

With the advocacy of the candidacy of Mr. Hoover 
went a belated enthusiasm for the League of Nations. 
Goody had been indifferent to it before, but Con had 
managed to fire him with some of her own zeal. To the 
latter, who was perpetually agitated by the desire to 
do something for someone else, it seemed perfectly ob¬ 
vious that we should "do something about Europe.” 
Mr. Bok had not then offered his Peace Prize, so there 
were not innumerable schemes from which to choose if 
one wanted to "do something about Europe”—indeed, 
the matter resolved itself into the League of Nations or 
nothing. So Con championed the League’s cause, re¬ 
garding it as a super-Charity Organization Society that 
would administer to the needs of the suffering, bind up 
the wounds of the afflicted, and chasten the unruly. 

The mere fact that Goody would have preferred the 
nomination of Mr. Hoover to that of General Wood or 
Governor Lowden or Senator Harding was in itself a 
trivial matter, but the fact that he became enthusiastic 
in the support of that platitudinous Anglo-American 
was a sign that he was no longer forming his own judg¬ 
ments uninfluenced by the inchoate mental processes 
209 


SOUND AND FURY 

of those about him. Goody had possessed a definite 
genius for reality except in cases where he was influenced 
by personal contacts—with the resultant likes and dis¬ 
likes formed because of them. Two or three years be¬ 
fore, he would have laughed at the virtuous mining 
engineer in almost the same fashion that he laughed at 
William Jennings Bryan and the National Security 
League. 

But Goody was the sad spectacle of a man swamped 
by virtue. He lived in a household where virtue not 
only was its own reward but also the daily diet. To 
Con it seemed a wonderful thing that a relief-director, 
a man who had given five years of his life to min¬ 
istering to stricken Belgium, should turn to politics. 
Such a man should certainly be elected President; he 
would not only “do something for Europe,” but he 
would know how to deal with our grave sociological 
problems at home. 

From his schoolboy days Goody had insisted upon 
doing his own thinking and forming his own judgments, 
but now he endorsed these half-truths and no-truths of 
Con without examining them very carefully. The keen 
edge of his Goody-ness was dulled. He no longer cut 
and hacked his own path. Far better was it to follow 
in Con's way, to accept her views, to share her en¬ 
thusiasms, to aid her efforts—even if these efforts re¬ 
duced themselves in the end to a frenzied zeal in behalf 
of imbecile children. 

For of all Con's causes none was so near to her heart 
as that of these poor little ones. No matter what 
the subject of conversation or where that conversation 

210 


SOUND AND FURY 
took place—whether in the living-room of some friend 
or her own bedroom with only Goody as audience—Con 
returned to these little creatures, so pathetic and feeble 
that they could not escape her benevolence. Others 
could cheat her of her rightful duty—an old man once 
turned on the gas at night rather than go to the County 
Home—but these helpless morons were her very own; 
they could not elude her, and few parents wanted to 
take them from her. To them she was the President, 
Congress, and the Supreme Court rolled into one—per¬ 
haps that is why they were so dear to her. Every 
problem, from the single tax to the ship subsidy, was 
considered in the end from their point of view—what 
would it mean to them? There was nothing undecided, 
nothing wavering, nothing uncertain about Con’s out¬ 
look on life; it was steadfast, immovable. 

Not everyone regarded Con’s attitude with the 
deference that Goody exhibited. Zeke McDuff, the car¬ 
toonist, who was tolerated despite tendencies that Har- 
persburg regarded as Rabelaisian, once said that the 
only thing necessary to complete Con’s happiness would 
be for her own child to be born a half-wit. 

Goody had not been married six months before he 
submitted to confirmation—he had been baptized as an 
infant. Before this he had had no religion, though in 
filling out cards at college he had put down his religion 
as Episcopalian, because his mother was one and, as 
religions went, it was all right. But Goody, as a boy, 
had followed his father’s example. The latter, an 
atheist, had never gone to church until, near the 
211 


SOUND AND FURY 

close of his life, he flirted with the idea of becoming 
Governor. For a few months after marriage Goody 
had stayed in bed until almost noon on Sunday morn¬ 
ings while Con went to church, but finally, on a crisp 
autumn morning, she had pulled the bed-clothes from 
him and he had gotten up and dressed in his cut-away 
and accompanied her to church. 

He had been to church before with Con, years ago, 
but the Rev. Mr. Harris that morning made a par¬ 
ticularly favourable impression upon him—there was 
something unspeakably clean and upright about the 
young man, something reserved, something inherently 
decent. When he spoke to God it was one gentleman 
addressing another, with due regard for that gentleman’s 
privacy and with the certain knowledge that his own 
privacy would be respected in turn. 

The clergyman often attended committee meetings 
at their home; Goody was to see him and his wife at 
the dinner table. Finally the clergyman called him 
“Goody” and was “Rufus” to him. It was a new sen¬ 
sation to be on terms of this kind with a reverend sir 
who had the spiritual welfare of half of Harpersburg 
society on his hands. 

“It just shows what marriage will do for you,” Goody 
told Bennett, when the old man came to his office to 
ask a donation for a Methodist hospital. “A year ago 
I was drinking whisky with bums like you, and here I 
am to-day, a pillar of the Church.” 

“You never drank any whisky with me,” Bennett as¬ 
sured him. “I haven’t touched a drop in thirty-five 
years, and you’re not that old.” 


212 


SOUND AND FURY 

'That proves what I'm saying,” said Goody, as he 
wrote a cheque. "A year ago not even you would drink 
with me, and to-day I am a bosom friend of the Rev. 
Rufus D. Harris who, unless God prevents it, will be a 
bishop one day.” 

“|What sort of a chap is he?” asked Bennett, who 
had once heard T. De Witt Talmage and who, therefore, 
considered himself a connoisseur in the matter of 
clergymen. 

"A mighty fine fellow,” replied Goody seriously. 
"All joking aside, I'm going to be confirmed and join 
his church.” 

"Get out!” 

"Not until they put me.” 

"Honest, are you?” 

"Certainly. What's the matter with me?” 

"Nothing's the matter much, Goody, but your father 
didn't take any stock in those things and I didn't sup¬ 
pose you did. However, I'm mighty glad of it.” 

"Think you'll meet me in heaven, don’t you? Well, 
I may fool you yet.” 

It was no deep religious urge that compelled Goody 
to reach this decision. He felt that Harris was a fine, 
likable man, and that the Church was doing commend¬ 
able work and had a good influence. Perhaps he had 
the idea that it was a moderating influence upon labour. 
In any event, he decided that it deserved his support 
and not merely his financial support, represented by an 
annual donation. The Church creeds did not bother 
him in the least; he still regarded them as pious poppy¬ 
cock, but he knew that there were many others in the 
213 


SOUND AND FURY 

Church who had as little respect for them as he. How¬ 
ever, this number did not include Con. For Con the 
Thirty-Nine Articles had more significance than the 
Ten Commandments or the Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence. There was not one of them for which she would 
not have suffered the thumbscrew and the rack. 

Harpersburg at this time was in the throes of an 
“American Plan” movement, a gentle scheme by which 
labour unions were suddenly to dissolve into thin air 
and peace and order, dominated by the benevolent em¬ 
ployers of the community, to reign in their stead. 
Goody did not join the movement, for he was making 
money and did not want his production interrupted. 
A hint that he might lose business and find it difficult to 
get credit accommodations if he stayed out, first made 
him angry and then made him laugh. 

But he did not escape labour troubles. There was a 
dispute one day in the press-room about some obscure 
technical matter that Goody himself only half under¬ 
stood, and most of the men there walked out. Of 
course, they had no authorization from their union and 
the impromptu strike was in clear violation of their 
agreement. This in itself, however, did not bring the 
men back to work. The union official in town busied 
himself with the matter and apparently was trying to 1 
settle the dispute, but he did not seem able to make any 
progress. 

Goody had some big contracts on hand, and his press¬ 
room force was badly crippled, though the other de¬ 
partments were not affected. He waited a day or two 

214 


SOUND AND FURY 
and then served notice on the rebels that unless they 
showed up for work the next morning the press-room 
would be operated on non-union lines. It was some¬ 
thing of a bluff, and he himself did not know where he 
could get enough non-union men for the presses, while 
he also faced the possibility of trouble in other de¬ 
partments. 

That night at ten o’clock his phone rang. He an¬ 
swered it, half thinking it might have something to do 
with the strike. The call came from the city jail. 
Andersen, one of the most hot-headed of the strikers, 
had been arrested for speeding in his flivver, crashing 
into another car, and then partially demolishing a lamp- 
post. Would Goody come and bail him out? 

It was an amusing enough request from a man who 
had almost achieved the distinction of making Goody 
worry about his business. Yet Goody understood how 
the fellow’s, mind worked. There was no one else 
upon whom he could call for bail at such short notice. 
Goody and he were pals; they might not agree about 
the precise manner in which the press-room should be 
run, but that had nothing to do with the matter of bail¬ 
ing a man out. Though Goody did not look upon it 
that way, it was something of a tribute that Andersen 
should have turned so naively to him for help. 

“What cheek!” was Con’s comment, when Goody ex¬ 
plained the call. “Tell him you’ll bail him out if he 
comes to work in the morning.” 

Goody laughed. Somehow or other, women didn’t 
see such things. (And yet, of the two, Con was sup¬ 
posed to be the Christian.) 

215 


SOUND AND FURY 

"I won’t be gone half an hour,” Goody told her, “and 
I’ll bring you back some ice cream from the Boston.” 

Andersen grunted his thanks when Goody had him 
released on bail. “Do the same for you some day,” 
he said as he cranked his flivver, which still was able 
to run. 

The next morning the entire press-room force re¬ 
ported for work. During the course of the day the 
dispute was adjusted. 

The last thing that occurred to either Goody or Con 
was to try to “put on style.” True, Con had a way of 
her own by which she did this; the very simplicity of 
her taste in clothes and in everything else emphasized 
the “horribleness” and vulgarity of the rest of the 
world. With Goody it was a matter of liking plain 
things because they were familiar to him—he had never 
been accustomed to anything else. He had never been 
indulged by his parents to any great extent, and they 
had lived in almost a frugal manner—even army food 
had tasted good to him. 

So, though Goody was having a taste of prosperity, 
he did not greatly alter his manner of living. He kept 
his Ford, despite the temptation to trade it in for a 
bigger car. Now, however. Con was finding difficulty 
in climbing through the little doors, and Goody was 
seriously considering a Buick. But he hated to part 
with the Ford. He didn’t have to be careful of it. If 
he got a new Buick, he knew Con would worry if it 
received a scratch. All in all, he was better off in his 

216 


SOUND AND FURY 
flivver, to which rain and mud, macadam and cobble¬ 
stone, were all alike. 

The temptation to purchase a new car was soon re¬ 
moved. The business depression that began in the 
latter part of 1920 gripped Harpersburg, for all the 
chortlings and blusterings of local Rotarians and pro¬ 
fessional boosters. There was something almost pa¬ 
thetic in the manner that these poor victims of their 
own delusions sought to stave off disaster by the magic 
of phrase and gesture. “If I had two bits for every 
crowd of business men that has been told this depres¬ 
sion is only psychological. I’d have enough for a Rolls- 
Royce,” Goody said to Con one evening. 

As it happened, Goody’s lack of interest in his busi¬ 
ness again had served him in good stead. If he had 
been a shrewd business man of the sort who studies 
graphs, curves, statistics, and fundamental economic 
trends, who subscribes to System and reads the Times 
Annalist, he would doubtless have expanded his plant 
in order to take advantage of boom times. He would 
have purchased additional linotype machines and 
presses—gone deeply into debt to buy them—and the 
sudden change, for which no mountain of statistics 
could have prepared him, would have rendered him 
hopelessly bankrupt. 

Goody had not studied the situation, and rejected 
the idea of expanding his plant—it had simply never 
occurred to him. He had been satisfied to see it kept 
busy and perhaps to add an extra margin of profit to 
each job, for, as he explained: “People are so crazy 
217 


SOUND AND FURY 

to spend money, it would be a shame not to let them.” 

The consequence was that when the depression came 
it found Goody better prepared than if he had dined 
every night upon the Magazine of Wall Street and gone 
to sleep with the Department of Commerce reports un¬ 
der his pillow. He did not owe a dollar; his accounts 
were, for the most part, in good shape, and he did not 
have more equipment than he could expect to keep 
busy in normal times. For a while it seemed that he 
would have a hard job making any money until the 
worst of the depression was over, but then business be¬ 
gan to improve a bit, the L. & H. Furman Printing 
Company, which had been his keenest competitor, failed 
and went out of business, and, all in all, Goody found 
himself hardly worse off than he had been before. 

It was another instance, in the eyes of Harpersburg, 
of the luck that seemed to be Goody's at everything ex¬ 
cept poker. As a matter of fact, Goody began to be¬ 
lieve in it himself. In the case of the Furman concern 
he had an example of what he, through sheer lack of 
interest and initiative, had escaped. 

Why should not Goody believe in his own good luck? 
He had married the girl he had wanted to marry; they 
were living happily together and were going to have a 
child—Goody was certain it would be a son. Their 
friends were the very nicest people in Harpersburg, no 
matter by what standard you judged—they had family, 
money, intellect. His heart had been pronounced in 
better condition than it had been for years; one might 
laugh at such things, but Dr. Carruthers' words were 

218 


SOUND AND FURY 
very reassuring. Finally, he had all the money he 
needed—more than he needed, in fact—and was able to 
permit himself luxuries in the form of unofficial char¬ 
ities; official charities were taken for granted in their 
household, for if he and Con had married on two thou¬ 
sand a year the latter would have insisted upon a cer¬ 
tain percentage of this going to good causes. 

This was the crowning feature of his happiness— 
this sense of moral well-being, of doing his duty. Pre¬ 
viously he had never possessed it and had not even 
noted its absence. It was a new and therefore a doubly 
grateful pleasure, this consciousness of being at one 
with all the great moral forces of Harpersburg, the 
United States, and the universe. While still rejecting 
Con’s theology, he had accepted her ethics. He no 
longer turned a deaf ear to the owl-like idolet that 
perched upon his shoulder. How could he doubt that 
virtue was superior to vice and that an orderly, reasoned 
existence was infinitely to be preferred to his own un¬ 
disciplined past? 

As a boy he had asked himself whether the Indians 
weren’t right to resist the whites and whether there 
might not be two kinds of 'Tight” to everything. He 
no longer had to bother with perplexing questions. 
Con had no doubts about anything. Matters that 
could not be determined on the lines of the best so¬ 
ciological practice went back to the Thirty-nine Ar¬ 
ticles for solution. 

At nine o’clock one morning Goody summoned the 
obstetrician who had a monopoly of that practice 
219 


SOUND AND FURY 

among the best families of Harpersburg. At eleven 
o’clock the baby came—a boy. It was another instance 
of Goody’s luck. 

The little fellow, after the first horrors of new-born 
ugliness had worn away, resembled Con—he seemed 
likely to have her fine features and fair skin. But his 
torso was like Goody’s—“chest like a little beer barrel,” 
the latter told his friends. The baby at birth weighed 
nearly eight pounds; after the first week he added to 
this regularly. 

One day Goody got a “sure tip” from a friend on a 
Curb oil stock. Remembering Dr. Carruthers, he 
laughed and paid no attention to it. But the next 
morning he looked for the quotation of that stock. It 
had opened at 10^4 and gone up to 11^. Several 
thousand shares had changed hands. He looked for 
it that afternoon. It had gone down to 11 y 2 . After 
all, why not take a chance? It wouldn’t require much 
money and he had plenty to spare. It was a good 
while since he had played poker and he felt that it was 
time for him to lose some money. 

He put in an order to buy a hundred shares. “Going 
to get rich in a hurry?” asked Joe Hallett, the broker. 

“I have to make some money for the boy,” Goody 
replied. 

By the time his order was executed the stock was at 
12J4- From then on, it went up steadily until it was 
at 14. Goody was seriously considering selling. One 
night he called up Hallett at his home to tell him to sell 
the next morning, but Hallett was out and when morn- 

220 


SOUND AND FURY 
ing came Goody had forgotten about it. The next day 
there was a dispatch from New York on the financial 
page to the effect that the Standard Oil Company of 
New Jersey had entered into a contract with Goody's 
company to exploit the latter’s lands in South America 
on a 50-50 basis. On the strength of that, the stock 
shot up to over 22. Goody sold immediately. He had 
made about a thousand dollars on the venture. 

That thousand dollars and five hundred more which 
had been given to the baby by Con’s father were put 
into the Harpersburg Savings Bank in the baby’s name 
with Con as trustee—"almost enough to send him 
through college by the time he is ready to go.” 

It seemed that there was no limit to Goody’s luck. 
What more could he desire? Only the wild, free sense 
of independence that he had surrendered, only the sat¬ 
isfaction, deep, abiding, irreplaceable, of being his 
own master, his own judge, his own God—only his 
Goody-ness. 


221 


X 


OODY was now past thirty. There was a def¬ 



inite sensation attached to leaving his twenties. 


He noticed that his hair was beginning to come 
out in the mornings when he combed it. It gave him a 
feeling of disgust. It was associated with an impression 
he had received as a boy; a vender of patent medicines 
had given him a circular that described various venereal 
diseases in such a way as to make almost any boy be¬ 
lieve he had at least several of them. One of the de¬ 
scriptions told how, with the most dreadful of these 
diseases, the hair falls out. Goody had always looked 
with disgust upon men whose hair thinned. 

He was also just the least bit stouter, and he found 
that almost everything from playing tennis—he did 
this seldom, for he was now more careful of his health— 
to climbing two flights of stairs to the nursery meant 
just a little more exertion. His wind wasn’t quite as 
good as it had been—oh, he was still young enough, but 
middle age was waiting in the offing and he dreaded it. 

Dick was two years old, Anne was just six months, 
and Goody lived in constant expectation of the an¬ 
nouncement of the future arrival of a third. For¬ 
tunately, money was no real concern, but he was still 
somewhat appalled by the prospect of an endless suc- 


222 


SOUND AND FURY 
cession of children, pleased though he was with the two 
he had. He even found out that Con had a theory of 
her own—and of the Church—on birth control. The 
method was simply that of continence. Goody felt 
that he had done his best to disillusion her upon that 
subject and hoped that he had succeeded, but he was 
by no means certain. 

Con had wanted to name the boy after Goody, but 
the latter, complaisant about most things, resolutely 
and definitely vetoed the idea of burdening any human 
being with his own name, George, which he had done 
his best to shake off. Besides, he had no love for jun¬ 
iors and the self-satisfied manner in which fathers as¬ 
sumed themselves to be patterns for their offspring. 
If it had not been for poor Tom's end, he would have 
wanted to name the baby after his old friend; as it was, 
he did not urge the name upon Con, and Richard had 
been her second choice. 

During the past two years Goody had lived an 
eminently respectable existence, no matter whether one 
judged him by Harpersburg, High Church, or socio¬ 
logical standards. He had bought a house just within 
the city limits, he had made money, he had attended to 
his duties as a father and a husband. He had heard 
his little son taught prayers without raising any ob¬ 
jection—he himself attended church services whenever 
Con could rouse him from bed on Sunday mornings. 
He seldom drank or played cards; he swore only in 
moderation. He was a successful employing printer 
and rarely had to go to the banks for money. He gave 
freely to charities and grumbled about the income tax. 
223 


SOUND AND FURY 

Outwardly, there was nothing to distinguish him from 
scores of other respectable and well-to-do residents of 
his city. 

There were many things about his married life, he 
now recognized, that were not perfect. He was easily 
ruffled and often completely lost patience with his 
wife. He honestly wondered why this was so. He still 
regarded her with a good deal of affection, but her al¬ 
most complete lack of response to him physically did 
not make it easier for him to play the role of the de¬ 
voted husband. As against Con, however, there were 
few patterns that he could offer; he looked back with 
disgust upon his entire love-life before marriage, except 
for one or two episodes in France. Sometimes he re¬ 
gretted that he had not been more of a Lothario in his 
youth—it might have made it less difficult to resign 
himself to his present existence. 

He was still generous enough with Con where it cost 
him nothing—in matters of money, for instance. He 
would have strange fits of extravagance; he would buy 
her a set of furs, a thousand-dollar shawl—anything, if 
only it were spending money. The gifts in themselves 
meant nothing to Con, who, was happiest and most 
herself in a shirtwaist and skirt, but sometimes they 
provoked in her a flood of generosity and she would 
remember the Goody she had known in the distant past, 
the proud hero of the Goody Guthrie legend, admin¬ 
istering law and justice as he saw fit in the boy world 
about him ... but it was only generosity, and the 
mood could never survive. 


224 


SOUND AND FURY 

Yes, he was free enough with money, but niggardly 
of himself. Unconsciously he withheld his thoughts 
from her; he resented any questions from her that 
might disclose them. He even disliked to talk to her 
about his business; he had adopted the defence of ask¬ 
ing her about her work, the children (their own), the 
children (the imbeciles), and so on, for ever keeping a 
question in reserve so that she had little opportunity to 
interrogate him. It was not merely that he disliked 
being questioned by her; the mental effort of thinking, 
of examining his own mind, was distasteful to him. It 
was better merely to sit and listen to her talk. 

He was easily vexed about other things, too. He 
had begun by driving his automobile in the way he did 
everything else—with a dash of defiance. He hated to 
hear her gasp of horror as he took a corner swiftly.' 
Now he drove rather carefully, but she had gotten into 
the habit of criticizing his driving, and if for once the 
gears rasped, or if the car stalled when he was stopped 
by traffic, her contempt could be felt rather than heard. 
It was not that she was afraid—rather, she resented 
any breach of discipline, of regularity, of the normal. 

It was this primness of mind, more than anything 
else, that annoyed him; it extended to the way he ar¬ 
ranged his clothes at night, to the condition of his 
shaving-brush, to the appearance of his shoes. He 
could never forget that he was married; even at the 
office a glance at his tie—it was the one she did not 
like—forced him to think of Con. 

The Goody who had made his bicycle the common 
property of all his friends might have been able to 
225 


SOUND AND EJJ.RY 

laugh off these petty vexations no matter how they were 
pyramided on each other. But Con had done her best 
to destroy that Goody and create another in its stead. 
She could not well complain if this other Goody, in¬ 
finitely more dependable, more respectable, more hum¬ 
drum, should also prove less generous than his pred¬ 
ecessor. There were the same broad shoulders, the 
same throaty laugh, the same powerful muscles, the 
same friendly, well-formed head. If all these had 
found normal outlets, if they had been functioning 
freely and joyfully, they might well have been able to 
stand the burden of an exacting, precise temperament. 
But they were already chafed by invisible reins and 
checks. 

There was no fault that Goody could possibly find 
with Con as a wife, save that gravest fault of all—the 
fact that there was no touch of mistress in her wifehood. 
She might be the centre of social-welfare work; the fate 
of all the imbecile children, unmarried mothers, crip¬ 
ples, paupers, moral, social and economic lepers in the 
State might rest on her shoulders, but she never neg¬ 
lected her home or her children or, for the matter of 
that, Goody himself, except in that one all-important 
regard. She employed a Negro couple to do the cook¬ 
ing and housework, and gave their efforts critical and 
caustic supervision; she had as nurse a red-haired young 
Irish girl who was efficiency itself and who could be 
trusted to assume entire charge of the young Guthries. 

But even the possession of unusually competent do- 

226 


SOUND AND FURY 
mestics did not free Con from the necessity of making 
sacrifices for the children. It was now June and, 
though the suburb in which they lived was somewhat 
cooler than Harpersburg proper, she decided that the 
children would be better off if they were removed from 
the river valley. So she took a cottage in the hill 
country to the north, not many miles from Silver Lake, 
and five days a week endured the hour-and-a-half ride 
on a dirty accommodation train to the city—an hour 
and a half that left her covered with cinders and with 
the reek of coal gases in her nostrils. Goody, of 
course, had to make the same trip, but he could hardly 
complain in view of the example that Con set for him. 

He had vainly argued with her that either she should 
keep the children at home or else abandon her welfare 
work for the summer, but she would not consent to take 
even a two weeks’ vacation. When Con felt that her 
duty lay in a certain direction, she was not easily per¬ 
suaded. Withal, there was about her no air of martyr¬ 
dom; she took the vile commuting as a matter of course 
and laughed at her friends who sympathized with her. 
It was in somewhat the same fashion that she had en¬ 
dured the tribulations of two pregnancies, and she had 
hardly been more moved by the pangs of childbirth. 

All Harpersburg looked on Con and Goody as an 
ideally happy young couple, for they had everything 
that, in Harpersburg terms, went to make up happiness. 
But to one who knew them both and who could guess 
the true status of their marriage, it would have been 
227 


SOUND AND FURY 

evident that only some decided change in their relations 
could provide a means of holding them together. The 
failure of their love-life and Con’s ideas upon birth 
control would in themselves have offered sufficient dif¬ 
ficulties, though they might have been surmounted by 
a buoyant, confident, whole-souled Goody. But the 
trouble went even deeper. 

No fable of the Greeks is truer than that of Antaeus. 
All of us resemble that giant; we renew our strength 
by daily contact with the earth. The proper function¬ 
ing of our muscles and bodily organs is indispensable 
to our happiness; their use, their exercise, their fulfil¬ 
ment, becomes our fulfilment, and from this we derive 
contentment and courage and hope afresh. 

It was not a mere matter of sex. That was only one 
direction in which Goody had been thwarted. He was 
checked and hemmed in from every side; within him 
were manifold impulses of activity—generosity, ad¬ 
venture, deviltry, defiance, sympathy—that were throt¬ 
tled at birth. Even when he overrode Con so com¬ 
pletely that she offered only the hint of opposition, as 
in the case of Dr. Carruthers—and such instances were 
few—there was always that hint present, and this in 
itself was sufficient to rob the act of much of its 
pleasure. 

The hunting-dog had been made into a house-dog, 
and so complete was its domestication that no new¬ 
comer would believe that it had ever done more than 
sit on its haunches and wait for a bone to be thrown 
from the table. The old Goody who would have let 
the devil have first punch and then have fought him 

228 


SOUND AND FURY 

to a standstill was gone; in his stead was a respectable 
householder who would have exorcized the devil with a 
prayer. But the old fires still burned. The old desires 
were still there. It was inevitable that in the end they 
should blaze forth anew. 

One October morning, once more living in their home 
on the outskirts of the city, Goody awoke with the 
distinct feeling that he did not want to go to the shop 
that day. He often had that feeling and occasionally 
he yielded to it—things seemed to run about as well in 
his absence as when he was there. That was the best 
part of not caring about your business, he reflected; 
he surmised that if he ever really wanted to make 
money he would probably have his full share of hard 
luck. 

This morning it was not exactly laziness. Goody 
jumped out of bed, but instead of putting on the blue- 
serge suit that hung upon the chair where he had put 
it the previous night, he went to his closet—scrupu¬ 
lously neat in spite of him—and got out an old cor¬ 
duroy hunting-suit. Goody was notoriously inefficient 
with a shotgun, but he enjoyed hunting tremendously; 
he usually got a bird or two, and companionship with 
Dan, his setter, was worth something in itself. 

Con was glad when Goody took these excursions from 
his work; she felt there was a kinship between him and 
the fox-hunting squires of Merrie England and, since 
everything English was nearly as sacred to her as the 
Thirty-nine Articles themselves, she was delighted to 
have him hunt as much as he pleased. She had no 
229 


SOUND AND FURY 

illusions about him as a business man, and, indeed, he 
had never fostered any in her or in himself. 

Goody kissed her and the babies good-bye and got 
into his Ford, leaving the Buick for her use. Dan rode 
beside him; the dog smelled the gun and knew what 
was coming—he was keyed to the highest pitch of ex¬ 
citement and barked almost continually. “Poor fool,” 
Goody said to him, “you ought to be going with a better 
shot. You take this affair too seriously for me.” As 
a matter of fact, Dan, on points, would have fared no 
better than his master under a critical sportsman's in¬ 
spection. He was a setter only by courtesy and be¬ 
cause he resembled that breed more than any other; he 
had been, as Goody once shocked Con by saying, “sired 
by all the best dogs in this State.” 

In half an hour Goody had reached some meadows 
that he knew. He and Dan left the car and started in 
search of quail. Either he was very lucky or the birds 
were more plentiful than usual, for by noon Goody had 
shot half a dozen. A mile away lived a farmer, an 
old friend of his father. Goody knew that he would be 
welcome there for dinner, so he tramped in that direc¬ 
tion and got there just as Redfield was coming in from 
the barn. 

“Glad to see you, Goody,” the older man called out. 
“Sally, Mr. Guthrie's here for dinner. Have any luck, 
Goody?” 

“Yep, better than usual. I'll leave you a couple here 
and you and Sally can have them for supper.” 

“Leave me a couple? Ain’t you going to keep any 

230 


SOUND AND FURY 
for yourself?” Redfield himself was a crack shot, and 
he never lost an opportunity to twit Goody about his 
deficiency. 

“The birds lit on my gun so I couldn’t miss them,” 
Goody explained. “At that, I’ll bet I'm a better shot 
than some of these Clay County William Tells.” 

“William Tell! I remember him. That’s good! 
Well, Goody, any time one of your smart city friends 
wants to come out here and try his luck at shooting the 
eye out of a squirrel, why, just send him along and I’ll 
see what he can do.” 

The dinner, cooked and served by the farmer’s niece 
and eaten by all three of them as well as Jake, the 
farm-hand, was a dinner. Soup, corned beef and cab¬ 
bage, half a dozen vegetables, stewed apples, coffee, pie, 
and pudding did not so much follow each other as 
advance on Goody simultaneously in solid ranks. He 
ate hugely—more than he would have eaten in three 
city luncheons—yet he failed to hold his own against 
Redfield and Jake; he had given up and was smoking 
a cigar while they were only beginning their attack 
upon the pie. Nothing was so well cooked that a con¬ 
noisseur would have approved it, but Goody’s taste in 
food had never been educated; he was still at the point 
he had been in the early days of his marriage when, on 
their maid’s night off, he had dined rapturously with 
Con on canned pork and beans. 

He had eaten far too much, and as he strolled away 
from the farm-house, he knew that he was not likely 
to do much more hunting that day. Off by himself 
231 




SOUND AND FURY 

with Dan, he sat down on a log, filled his pipe, and' 
started to think. At least, he called it that to himself, 
when suddenly the idea came to him: How long had 
it been since he had been enough interested in any¬ 
thing or had wanted anything enough to think about it? 
God, that was a poser! 

He had wanted Con and had gotten her. That had 
been three years ago. Before that the thing that stood 
out in his mind was the war. That had been real; 
he had lived those months in France. But after that, 
after his marriage—what? Not his business: he never 
bothered about it. Not his children: they were healthy 
little brats, God bless them—but he did not have to 
think about them. Con was supreme where they were 
concerned. Was there anything at all that challenged 
him to think or put his best efforts forward? Not his 
friends: the man he felt closest to had killed himself. 
Not even Con: she was his wife, no longer an object of 
desire, no longer something to be won. 

What in hell was he doing? What in God’s name 
was he making of himself? He was thirty. The years 
would go quicker now. What did the things he was 
doing matter? He couldn’t even tell himself that he 
was enjoying himself—he wasn’t. He felt cramped. 
He wanted elbow room. 

He got to his feet, jumped up, and grasped a branch 
overhead. He swung two or three times then, on the 
upswing, lifted himself upon the branch as though it 
were a bar in a gymnasium. He was fit enough, all 
right. It wasn’t that kind of activity he needed. But 
he wanted something into which he could sink his teeth 

232 


SOUND AND FURY 
—something that would make him work and think— 
something for which he could fight. For a moment he 
didn’t care what it was—just something that would 
wake him up, use him up. Right or wrong, he wanted 
to be doing something. 

He felt no special hostility toward Con, no more hos¬ 
tility than he had for that great mass of inert humanity 
which seemed to be oppressing him, stifling him. The 
fault was his. He was too much married, too much 
a father. He had sunk too deeply into the damn fool 
ruts of everyday life. Instead of cutting his own way 
cross-country, he was following beaten trails, other 
men’s trails. 

Did he want some other woman? He didn’t know, 
but he didn’t think so. All he knew was that anything 
different would be a relief, anything that brought a new 
situation, a new problem, a new thrill. Even a boot¬ 
legger was better off than he—a bootlegger had excite¬ 
ment, danger, big rewards. As well be a tailor as a 
printer! 

This was not the first time he had felt this way. But 
never before had be been so thoroughly disgusted with 
himself and so thoroughly fed up with everything he 
was doing, everything that people thought interested 
him, everything that Harpersburg valued. 

Even the children! They were fine children. But 
what could he give them ? Money, education—he knew 
how much these were worth. But he had an idea 
there was something he could give them, but he could 
give it to them only by being it. It was a very obscure 
and confused notion. If he was something, it might 
233 


SOUND AND FURY 

teach them more than all the prep schools and colleges 
of the country. 

Children were no justification, anyway. It wasn’t 
enough to say: “Well, here are two (or a dozen) fine 
kids. I’ve helped give life to them and brought them 
up.” He remembered the essay of Chesterton he had 
read years before; it was something to the effect that 
there was no use in making a hammer if all it was good 
for was to make other hammers. Suppose the kids 
later on asked him what they could make out of life? 
Should he tell them just to have children of their own? 
What was the use of repeating the process unless some¬ 
where along the line someone found some real meaning 
in it and made life worth while in itself and for him¬ 
self? That would give some sense to the whole affair. 
Without that, it was like a squirrel chasing himself in 
a cage. 

He didn’t need any justification anyway—except to 
himself. That was where the rub came. He had been 
busy the last couple of years justifying himself to Con 
and to Harpersburg and to everyone who saw fit to cock 
an eye at him, while the only person on earth to whom 
he had to render any accounting had been tossed aside 
like an old shoe. It was a hell of a note. 

The simple truth was that Goody had served his 
apprenticeship to marriage just as, years before, he had 
served his apprenticeship to its rival institution. There 
are many men whom marriage satisfies, just as there are 
some for whom prostitution is sufficient, but Goody 

234 


SOUND AND FURY 
was now finding the endearments of one fully as arti¬ 
ficial and forced as the caresses of the other, while he 
had discovered that its obligations were infinitely more 
irksome. 

He was a keg of gunpowder, needing only a spark for 
an explosion. It was inevitable that the spark should 
come. If there were no flash of lightning, a lighted 
cigarette would do. 

When Goody got home that afternoon, he found a 
conference taking place in the big living-room—Con, 
a group of her clerical welfare-workers, a few non¬ 
clerical ones, and half a dozen legislators. He would 
have liked to get upstairs unobserved and take a warm 
bath and then a nap, but Con captured him in the hall 
and brought him into the room. After the handshak¬ 
ing, he thought, there might be a chance to escape, but 
Con ruled otherwise. So Goody sat there and lis¬ 
tened a discussion of plans to obtain a psycholo¬ 
gist for the children's court in Harpersburg, with the 
intention of ultimately extending the same system 
throughout the State. It was all very well, but he 
would rather have been upstairs. His head began to 
nod and in a comparatively short time he was asleep. 
He awoke as the guests prepared to leave. Everyone 
laughed and Con did not seem very much annoyed. 
But it was a stupid ending to the day. 

One morning Goody saw on his desk at the office a 
letter in a handwriting that was familiar. He stared 
235 


SOUND AND FURY 

at it for a few moments in absolute amazement before 
he opened the envelope. He sank into his chair and 
read: 

“Dear Goody: 

“It is taking an unfair advantage of you in a way—this 
sudden resurgence after three years in the tomb. Certainly 
it is hitting without giving you the least chance to return 
the blow. 

“First, to diminish your surprise. I am still dead and 
likely to remain so for some time. I have entrusted this 
letter to a friend who, unless he forgets, will mail it to you 
three years after my death. 

“Why three years? Your question is quite in order. A 
few weeks ago I wrote to you everything I had to say to 
you at that time. It is unforgivable in the living to be 
repetitious and even less pardonable in the dead. Now, 
however, you are faced by a new set of circumstances. You 
probably have a child or two. You probably know a great 
deal more about yourself than you did, and you certainly 
know more about marriage. 

“Where is it leading you, Goody, old man? Are you 
holding your own against it? Or is it doing for you as 
it—and a good many other things—did for me? 

“I realize now that I was just pie for marriage—that I 
never had a chance against it. I never sufficiently asserted 
myself before marriage—how could I expect to afterwards? 
It was like being knocked out by a bantamweight and then 
expecting to lick Jack Dempsey. 

“All my life I found the pace just a little too swift for 
me. Three years ago you would not have known what I 
meant by that, for certainly I made enough money, and I 
made friends too—made them easily, without giving them 

236 


SOUND AND FURY 

anything of myself. It was in the growth and strengthening 
and fortification of my inner self that I lagged. In fact, I 
never did achieve myself, and I am dying now with very 
little idea of what my real self could have been. 

“Do you think I am playing with words? Recall, if you 
will, my childhood—mine so different from yours. You will 
probably remember how I was be-flannelled, be-woollened, 
be-rubbered, be-umbrellaed, be-sweatered, and be-overcoated 
to distraction; in May, when other children were tumbling 
about on the grass, I was warned that it was still too damp 
for that; in June, when you and other boys were going 
barefoot, I still wore my shoes and stockings. On misty 
days I was compelled to carry an umbrella over my head 
to keep off the dampness. In short, my parents never seem 
to have realized that it might be possible for me to continue 
to exhale and inhale breath with amazing regularity until 
my great-grandchildren began to wonder whether I were 
going to live for ever—that I might do this without ever 
understanding or even suspecting what life means and can 
be made to yield, that I might well miss in my ninety or 
a hundred years the freedom and self-assertion which alone 
render life tolerable for the poor beings who do not get 
beyond three score and ten. 

“This is why it seems so highly important to me that 
you retain what you have gained—your own vigorous self, 
your true personality, the very Goody-ness that is you. You 
are rich in this, but your very weaffh of courage and 
generosity may make you too prodigal; you may expend it 
all fruitlessly; you may fritter it away. 

“I remember an old Anglo-Saxon chronicle I once read 
back in college. It concerned a fight between some Saxons 
and a raiding party of Danes. The Saxons were well posted 
on the high bank of a stream that the Danes in vain tried 
237 


SOUND AND FURY 

to cross. Each time they attempted it, they were thrown for 
a loss. Finally the Danes wearied of this sport. Their 
leader called out to the Saxons: There isn’t good fighting 
here; suppose you move away and let us cross and then 
we’ll fight you on even terms.’ 

“What a naive conception of warfare! But those were 
simple, naive times. The Saxons, in what the chronicler 
called their ofermod (literally, their over-courage—that is, 
excess of bravery), granted the request of the Danes. They 
drew back from their advantageous position and permitted 
the Danes to cross, whereupon the Danes proceeded to 
wallop hell out of them. 

“Goody, I don’t foresee any such end for you. But you 
do possess a great deal of the same spirit as those Saxons. 
As a boy you were always ready to give the other fellow 
both underholds. That is all right as a boy, but a man 
who does that is a fool. 

“Don’t give up yourself! Everything I have learned 
teaches me that it is better to blaze like a match in oxygen 
than to smoulder and turn to charcoal. If you have sur¬ 
rendered anything during the past three years, you have 
relinquished too much. Review that time. Try to see your¬ 
self as you were and as you are to-day. If you are happy— 
fine and good! If not, why aren't you? Is it because you 
have given away too much of yourself, quite irrespective of 
what you may have received in return? 

“This is the last time I shall bother you. Who would 
want to live in momentary expectation of reading another 
message from the grave? Rest assured there shall be no 
other. 

“Finally, it occurs to me that no better picture of me could 
be had than this rambling letter, for the most part about 
myself, tricked out with little bits of learning, making a 

238 


SOUND AND FURY 

silly pretence of saying something and coming down to 
nothing at all. However, once more I promise you that 
there will be no more from 

“Your friend that was 

“Tom” 

Goody read the letter through carefully, then reread 
it and tore it up. He wasn’t sure exactly why he did 
that. Probably it was because he had decided to say 
nothing at all about it to Con, and he wanted, there¬ 
fore, to make sure that she should not see it. He must 
remember, also, not to refer to it in conversation. 
Con was becoming very touchy about such things. She 
had the feeling that she was no longer in his complete 
confidence and, for this reason, sometimes attempted 
to worry from him the slightest details about his busi¬ 
ness, whom he met at luncheon, etc. She would not 
forgive any reticence upon such a matter as receiving 
a letter from a friend who had been dead three years. 
But he knew that if he let her see the letter, or even 
made the barest mention of it to her, it would neces¬ 
sitate endless explanations. 


239 


XI 


HEN Carter Fairchild revealed to Goody the 



plans of the secret organization that was to 


solve America's labour problem by horse¬ 


whipping agitators, the Ku Klux Klan in its modern 
form was only beginning to make itself felt. Just as 
in the case of prohibition a few years earlier, it was 
considered a fantastic scheme that could never “get 
across." 

But the driving power of cupidity, bigotry, and in¬ 
tolerance had been underestimated. To-day the Klan 
was very much a fact and a force to be reckoned with in 
Harpersburg; the chief of police was a member—that 
was an open secret—and it was even said that Mayor 
Slocombe was a subject of the Invisible Empire. One 
night the fiery cross blazed from Harper's Hill and 
hooded members of the Klan practically took control of 
the city, stationing themselves at prominent traffic 
points downtown and directing automobiles to the gath¬ 
ering-place of the Klan—the Konclave, as it was termed 
by the Harpersburg Post, which took the movement 
very seriously and wrote editorials about it which were 
so judiciously constructed that they could offend 
neither the Klan nor its foes and could be read upside 
down or upright with equal lucidity. The Harpersburg 
Tribune, on the other hand, as the organ of the con- 


240 


SOUND AND FURY 
servative interests of the city, denounced the Klan with 
vigour—it was afraid that labour, Negro and even 
white, would be frightened away from the city. 

The evangelical churches in Harpersburg were all 
more or less affiliated with the Klan; here and there 
a clergyman asserted his independence of it, but for 
the most part the ministers of the Prince of Peace were 
willing to regard as their allies the hooded ruffians who 
availed themselves unstintedly of the club, the lash, and 
the mutilator’s scalpel. 

The Episcopal Church, on the other hand, stood aloof 
from the Invisible Empire, while, of course, the High 
Church faction was much too near Rome to sympa¬ 
thize with a movement directed in part against Catho¬ 
lics and Catholicism. But, however much the respect¬ 
able, well-to-do burghers might be inclined to sneer 
at the Klan, it was not good policy to do so, for busi¬ 
ness and more personal reasons. Con herself regarded 
the Klan as “horrible,” but she never discussed it ex¬ 
cept with Goody or her most intimate friends, for, so 
she reasoned, it would have been inexcusable for her 
to jeopardize the important work in which she was en¬ 
gaged by entering any controversy that did not bear 
directly on it. Con was nothing if not clear-minded 
and practical. 

At the present time Con and the “welfare machine” 
she headed had enemies enough without gratuitously 
adding to their number. Mayor Slocombe cherished 
the laudable ambition of becoming Governor, and to 
his mind, simple and direct like Con’s, it seemed that 
241 


SOUND AND FURY 

this could best be done by discrediting Governor Can¬ 
trell. The Governor had worked in complete harmony 
with the 'welfare machine," so Slocombe naturally 
directed his fire against it. Con's cherished Home for 
Feeble-minded Children was within the city limits; it 
was supported in part by Harpersburg money, so 
Slocombe decided to investigate it, knowing very well 
that in every public institution of that kind there occur 
abuses which can be brought to light by investigators 
armed with the proper bias. Cantrell denied the other's 
right to investigate a State institution and got an in¬ 
vestigation of his own under way; this meant that the 
matter would be fought out in a long and dreary legal 
contest. 

In the meantime it was thought best that Con should 
go to another State where she could not be reached by 
subpoena. Cantrell, who knew that he was fighting 
for his political life, came to the Guthrie home one night 
and almost begged her to go. Sid Haber, who was his 
right-hand man, accompanied him and advised it. 
Goody was not particularly interested in Cantrell’s fate, 
but he was fond of Haber and respected his judgment; 
he was persuaded to agree, though he disliked for Con 
to give the appearance of fleeing from an investigation. 

"It's no investigation—it's without legal warrant," 
Haber told him. "Your wife is simply going away to 
Hot Springs for a badly needed rest. If Slocombe 
wants to carry on his monkey-shines while she's away, 
she can't help it. She knows that he is just playing 
cheap politics and she's not going to put off her vaca¬ 
tion to help him pull his chestnuts out of the fire— 

242 


SOUND AND FURY 
see? Everybody knows that she didn't take a vacation 
this summer. I guess she is entitled to two or three 
weeks' rest—isn't she?" 

For her part, Con would have liked the excitement 
of the inquiry and the thrill of the witness stand. But 
she took Haber's advice and the following morning left 
for Hot Springs with the children and their nurse. 
Goody planned to spend a week with her after he put his 
business in order. 

Con's sudden departure created something of a sen¬ 
sation. The Harpersburg Post caricatured her play¬ 
ing golf while the children in the home suffered abuse 
and neglect; the Tribune denounced the cartoon as a 
libel upon the chivalry of the State. Goody was some¬ 
what embarrassed by the recurrence of the name Guthrie 
in the press, but, on the whole, he took the matter 
philosophically. It seemed a lot of fuss about noth¬ 
ing. A few years before, he would have pictured Con 
as a John Hus or a Joan of Arc, suffering for her ad¬ 
herence to the truth, and he would probably have 
whipped the editor and the cartoonist of the Post in 
the bargain. As for Con, the Post provided her with 
a fresh thrill when it arrived each day. Anyone could 
have her photograph in the paper—Con's had once been 
printed in the rotogravure section of the New York 
Times. But to be caricatured! That was fame indeed. 

While Con was away, all her friends did their best 
to relieve Goody's fancied loneliness. He might have 
enjoyed being by himself a few evenings, but Miss Bee 
Blodgett gave a dinner for him to which the Clive War- 
243 


SOUND AND FURY 

rens and the Arthur Warrens were invited; the next 
night he took dinner with the Clive Warrens, and Miss 
Bee Blodgett, the Arthur Warrens, and the Jim Daleys 
(Jim Daisies, in Harpersburg parlance) were there. 
The Clive Warrens were famous locally for their cellar; 
before dinner Goody had two fingers of old bourbon and 
a cocktail, with dinner there was sauterne and cham¬ 
pagne and at the conclusion of the meal a liqueur. Un¬ 
der these stimulants Goody fairly glowed with amiabil¬ 
ity, and he managed to steal a tiny peck of a kiss from 
Mrs. Jim Daisy while dancing in the sun parlour, a 
matter for which Jim Daisy would have been well justi¬ 
fied, according to Harpersburg ethics, in shooting him. 
Fortunately, Mrs. Jim forgot to mention the matter to 
her husband after Goody had driven them home that 
night. 

In the course of the next few days Goody even had 
dinner at the home of his friend “Rufe” Harris—the 
Rev. Rufus D. Harris of St. Christophers. He had 
never known Mrs. Harris very well. She was taller 
than he liked a woman to be—nearly as tall as he. Be¬ 
side her, Con in her shirtwaist and skirt seemed a some¬ 
what mature and overly serious schoolgirl. No wonder, 
then, that the latter shrank from the comparison; Dr. 
Harris was “charming” but his wife “horrible.” 

Isabelle Harris was an English girl, and whenever her 
frankness led her into expressing opinions that seemed 
strange in the mouth of a clergyman's wife or into 
sweeping condemnations of persons or institutions, 
Harpersburg merely attributed this to her “English 
way.” As a matter of fact, it stood somewhat in awe 

244 


SOUND AND FURY 
of her as it did of everything English—English pipes, 
English society, English books, English clothes, English 
golf balls, English manners. 

It was very probable that she sensed this feeling of 
fear and enjoyed it. She had no children and found 
few things to interest her in Harpersburg—a course or 
two in biology at the University of Harpersburg 
(founded 1915 a.d.), a queer little English Jew who 
wrote editorials for the Tribune, Zeke McDuff, the car¬ 
toonist, Mrs. Wilson Tyler, forty with the grace of 
twenty and the wisdom of seventy. But, for the most 
part, she had grown in upon herself. She had found 
few outlets for her energy and individuality in Harpers¬ 
burg, and she had been thrown more and more upon 
herself. Her husband was a very fine person, to be sure, 
but there was something distinctly Arthurian about 
him; he was all too perfect even in the kingly conde¬ 
scension with which he interested himself in prize¬ 
fights, baseball, and the other amusements of the laity. 
Still, he was a thoroughly decent, honourable person and 
she never expected to discover anyone who could be 
compared with him. If only she could feel that she was 
satisfied with herself and with her life! 

In all probability it would have been the same in 
Devon as in Harpersburg, but no one could prove this, 
so she hated Harpersburg with a hatred that was mag¬ 
nificent in its proportions. She loathed the very stones 
in the street and damned every atom in each stone and 
every electron in each atom. Yet, with all this, she 
would not have admitted even to herself that she re¬ 
gretted having met the handsome young chaplam in 
245 


SOUND AND FURY 

London. . . . Certainly there was one week of which 
she never would repent. 

Goody was not particularly pleased at being invited 
to the Harrises’, but he saw no way to avoid the invita¬ 
tion without going to more trouble than it was worth. 
He had drunk a bit the night before and had a dull 
headache when he got to the clergyman’s home. How¬ 
ever, he had a cordial reception; Rufe had thrown to¬ 
gether the ingredients of a cocktail and upon Goody’s 
entrance (ten minutes late) there came the gentle tinkle 
of ice in the shaker. The headache disappeared and 
Goody was in an expansive mood once more, for the 
mixture was stiff, and Rufe insisted upon his taking 
a second. "Sign of old age,” Goody told himself. 
"Can’t stand it the way I used to.” 

Of all the hates she felt for everything pertaining to 
Harpersburg, none was so warm and thoroughly en¬ 
joyable as that Isabelle Harris entertained for Con. 
She resented her husband’s interest in the other, but 
even without that she would have found excuse enough 
in Con herself. "Righteousness and self-righteousness,” 
she had remarked to no one in particular, seeing her 
husband and Con enter a meeting together. Goody she 
regarded as merely a pale reflection of his wife; she 
knew nothing of the Goody Guthrie tradition and con¬ 
sidered him merely another example of the domesti¬ 
cated steer common to Harpersburg. 

As a rule Goody had little to say when Con was at 
hand; to-night he was more talkative. It may have 
been the presence of the clergyman’s wife, which in- 

246 


SOUND AND FURY 
spired him as much as the cocktails; he noticed now that 
she had the same grey-blue eyes that he remembered at 
Silver Lake, though she was a far handsomer woman, 
taller, more graceful. Suddenly her height was no 
longer a disfigurement; it was an inseparable part of 
her; it would have been impossible to imagine Isabelle 
Harris short and unimpressive like Con. 

There is a story which tells how the spirit of Poe, 
thirsting in the world of shadows for the wine that he 
had enjoyed so hugely in this, found a way to obtain 
brief refreshment and exhilaration; it entered into the 
body of a dullard at a bar, suddenly rendering the 
stupid stranger a wit of the rarest order. Soon a crowd 
of listeners gathered about him; he was urged to drink 
with this one and that, and the wine proffered to the 
body of the fool entered into the soul of Poe. 

In somewhat the same way the spirit of the old Goody 
was creeping back into the veins of Dr. Harris' guest. 
It was not so much what he said nor that the playful 
gleam was in his eye once more and that one heard 
again the same deep, throaty chuckle. It approached 
a transformation of his very self. He felt himself once 
more of some importance, apart from Con and children 
and printing-plant, and, regarding himself differently, he 
became different. The little annoyances of Harpers- 
burg life, its petty cautions, its discreet lies, its mani¬ 
fold hypocrisies, its sham and shoddy and humbug were 
nothing to him; he looked upon them as a scientist 
watches the thousands of bacteria lashing about in a 
drop of water beneath his microscope. Once more the 
world was his oyster which he with sword would open. 
247 


SOUND AND FURY 

Visibly Goody grew before the eyes of Rufus and 
Isabelle Harris. The surprise would not have been so 
great in many Harpersburg households which remem¬ 
bered the Goody that had been, but the Harrises were 
new-comers; they had never pictured Goody save as a 
correct, well-mannered young business man, glad to 
have his wife do his thinking for him in everything ex¬ 
cept money matters. Now, especially to the woman, it 
suddenly became clear that here was a real personality 
in Harpersburg that had completely been overlooked; 
the saturnine Levi, regarding his own editorials with 
the same contempt that he gave to everything about 
him, seemed an extremely insignificant person compared 
to this broad-shouldered being, confident of himself and 
his strength, so buoyant, so care-free, so whole-souled. 

She was beginning to understand something of the 
Goody that had been and of the Goody that even yet 
might be—of the Goody that he so plainly thought he 
was to-night. Yet who was he to speak so confidently? 
His freedom was measured by the distance between Har¬ 
persburg and Hot Springs. She could not resist saying: 

“You know. Goody”—in spite of her repugnance she 
had come to “Con” and “Goody”—“I have never heard 
you talk like this before.” 

“Blame your own cocktails, good lady,” he replied, 
and then added: “I have monopolized the conversa¬ 
tion, haven’t I?” 

“It’s not the quantity, though that has been grate¬ 
fully abundant, but the quality of your conversation 
that surprises me. There is a wild strain running 
through it that I never noticed before. Tell me, do 

248 


SOUND AND FURY 

you talk like this”—she wanted to say “at home,” but 
she compelled herself to add: “at the Rotary Club?” 

Had he been in a less sanguine mood, the shot would 
have had effect. “At the Rotary Club I speak good 
Rotarianese,” he answered. “But what does that mat¬ 
ter? Things can sleep in a man for a long time—things 
he's half forgotten—things that should have been but 
weren't. These things can sleep for a couple of years 
or longer and then suddenly get into his blood and he 
looks around him and says to himself: This is a 
dickens of a mess. What are you doing? What are 
you thinking about? All bets are off. Clear out!"' 

“Don't frighten us. Rufe’s church can't afford to 
lose a communicant.” 

Goody made a face. “There is more than one way to 
clear out,” he answered. “A man can clear out with¬ 
out leaving home. It's mostly stuff that's in his mind. 
If he can throw those things out of the window—men¬ 
tally, I mean—you see I'm getting a bit mixed—he can 
stay right at home but everything will be different. 
You know, a person can get pretty sick of doing the 
same thing all the time,” he concluded lamely. 

It had taken some time for the shot to have effect, 
but in the end it had crippled him. After all, what had 
he been talking about? He couldn't possibly remember 
everything he had said. He had caught the other 
woman's reference to Con. He could feel big and free 
only because she was away. 

Con had been gone two weeks. The activity of 
Governor Cantrell's opponents showed no signs of de- 
249 


SOUND AND FURY 

creasing. Goody began to feel that his wife had made 
a mistake in leaving the State, but now that she had 
committed that blunder, it would double the error for 
her to return. He had always suspected that there was 
something yellow about Cantrell and now he knew it. 
In his heart Goody liked a thing that was true to type 
—a thoroughbred, a bulldog, a gardener, a Negro. He 
liked Negroes who wore old clothes and laughed re¬ 
spectfully at his jokes; he disliked one who dressed 
sprucely, wore glasses, and called himself “mister.” 
In the same way—despite the enthusiasm he had been 
able to summon for the candidacy of Herbert Hoover— 
he liked a politician who was true to type; he suspected 
one who tried to play the game with reformers and 
women. 

But Goody had to live while his wife was away, and 
he was managing to do this very well indeed. Isabelle 
Harris was a distinct aid. He formed the habit of 
dropping in on them frequently; both she and her hus¬ 
band were glad to see him and showed it. Then came 
the evening when the Clive Warrens and the Jim 
Daisies were going to the Twenty-Mile House for din¬ 
ner. They asked the Harrises and Goody to come with 
them. Dr. Harris had to attend a meeting of the 
vestry that night, but he generously suggested that 
Goody take Isabelle. 

The Twenty-mile House held a unique place in the 
social scheme of Harpersburg. For the most part every 
public institution, and particularly every eating-place 
or hotel in the city, was labelled (very emphatically) 
respectable or exactly the reverse. When Goody, for 

250 


SOUND AND FURY 
instance, had admonished his friend Ethridge against 
entertaining the stenographic Miss Smith, it had not 
been the fact that they were seen together which pro¬ 
vided the basis for the complaint—it was that Ethridge 
had taken her to McLarren's Theatre and to the grill 
room of the Harpersburg Hotel, sanctuaries reserved 
for virtue. There would have been no comment at all 
if he had dined with her at the Southern Tavern, for 
instance, for then he would not have been ‘Taunting" 
her in the face of his friends. 

But roadhouses of the new type were still compara¬ 
tively novel, and there had not been sufficient oppor¬ 
tunity to regiment them and separate the sheep from the 
goats. At the Twenty-Mile House, accordingly, one 
might meet a man with either his wife or a lighter com¬ 
panion; in the latter case, one simply did not notice 
him and the couple did not exist. Such conjuring-feats 
form the basis of all respectable society. 

The Twenty-Mile House was rather respectable of 
its kind; there were no accommodations for transients 
nor even any private dining-rooms, so it would not have 
been anything out of the ordinary if the Rev. Mr. 
Harris, who, after all, was a clergyman, had joined the 
party there. Even the presence of his wife without him 
could be understood, for she would be amply chap¬ 
eroned. But it happened that Goody was delayed at 
his shop that evening and telephoned to her that the 
others should not wait for him—that he would drive 
out later in his own car. Greatly to his surprise—and 
it gave him a secret thrill—she suggested that she 
would ride out with him. No Harpersburg girl would 
251 


SOUND AND FURY 

have done that, but this was one reason why Isabelle 
Harris was more attractive to him that the ordinary 
home-bred female. 

It was nearly seven o'clock when Goody called for 
her. “We'd better drive pretty quickly,” he told her, 
"or the Jim Daisies will have eaten up everything in 
sight.” 

There was little conversation on the way. For the 
most part Goody was driving at the rate of forty miles 
an hour over roads that were none too perfect. The 
top of the car was down, and there was a wild exhila¬ 
ration in speeding through the night. Con would have 
urged him to caution at every curve in the road; Isabelle 
only laughed when a car swung out ahead of them and 
Goody had to swerve his own machine quickly to avoid 
running into it. 

The car now encountered a particularly bad stretch 
of road and Goody had to slow down. As he did so, 
the automobile he had just passed—a Ford—pulled up 
alongside and, edging gradually across the road, forced 
Goody toward the ditch at the side and finally com¬ 
pelled him to stop. 

"Some hick sheriff trying to enforce his speed law,” 
he commented to Isabelle. "Confound the luck!” 

Goody got out of the car as three men descended 
from the Ford. He made up his mind to keep his tem¬ 
per and try to bribe the sheriff; that would be the best 
way out, and it would be easier to do this if he could 
get him off alone. 

The three men, one middle-aged, the other two 
youngish chaps, came toward him. One of the younger 

252 


SOUND AND FURY 
fellows, who carried an electric torch, demanded: 
“Where’re you going?” 

“Just out to the Twenty-Mile House”—a mild an¬ 
swer, though the question seemed impertinent. “Why 
did you stop me?” 

“Never mind about that. Answer my questions.” 

Goody looked at the tall, lean stranger. “Young 
man,” he said, “if you take care of yourself you ought 
to live fifty years, but you talk like you’re tired of 
life.” 

“What in hell do you mean?” The young man drew 
a revolver from his pocket. “Now answer my ques¬ 
tions or you’ll find out what a horsewhip tastes like.” 

At the sight of the revolver, Isabelle jumped out of 
the automobile and joined Goody. She touched his 
arm. “Of course we’ll answer your questions,” she 
said to the young fellow, “but you oughtn’t to stop 
people like this without telling them who you are and 
what your authority is.” 

The other turned his flashlight upon her, looked at 
her a moment, but did not address her. 

“If you don’t answer my questions, or if I don’t like 
your answers, it’ll be the worse for you both,” he told 
Goody. “We’re a committee that’s looking into all the 
cutting-up that’s being done around here, particularly 
at the Twenty-Mile House.” 

“Ku Klux?” Goody had heard vague rumours that 
the Klan had taken over the old “horse committees,” 
relics of a day when vigorous measures had to be em¬ 
ployed against horse-thieves, and was using these com¬ 
mittees to enforce its own ideas of propriety, 

253 


SOUND AND FURY 

“Shut your mouth and answer questions/’ the older 
man told him. “Don’t take any of his snot, Bill.” 

“I won’t. Now look here. What’s your name?” 

The revolver was pointed at him. He had to answer, 
and he thought it best to answer truthfully. 

“Guthrie.” 

“First name?” 

“George.” 

“Where do you live?” He told them. 

“What’s your business?” 

“Printer.” 

“A nice-looking printer!” the man sneered. “Hands 
all full of ink, ain’t they?” 

“I’m an employing printer; I own a printing-shop.” 

“Where is it?” 

Goody replied to this question also. 

“Now look here. Is this woman your wife?” 

He indicated Isabelle with a vague movement of the 
torch. As he did so, he took his eyes from Goody for 
a second. In that moment Goody stepped toward him 
and hit him with all his might on the point of the chin. 
The crack of the impact was like a pistol shot. Isabelle 
gasped and steadied herself by seizing the mudguard of 
the car. 

The next second the other young fellow sprang at 
Goody. Goody flung him to the ground and, as the 
older man closed in upon him, drove his fist into the 
pit of the latter’s stomach. The poor creature, hold¬ 
ing both hands to his stomach and vainly endeavouring 
to draw breath, backed across the road and tumbled into 
the ditch. 


254 


SOUND AND FURY 

Goody stopped and took the revolver from the hand 
of the man who lay senseless in the glare of the head¬ 
lights. The other young chap was struggling to rise. 
Goody kicked him, not over-gently. 

“Stand up, fool, and put up your hands!” he com¬ 
manded, and was obeyed. He picked up the torch and 
turned it on the older man. “Do you mind seeing, 
Isabelle, if that antiquated humbug has a gun?” 

“No, he hasn’t,” she reported. 

“Tell the fossil to get up and hold up his hands or 
he’ll take a long trip.” 

The fellow did so. “Now see if this young fool here 
has a gun,” he requested Isabelle. She felt in his 
pockets without result. 

“Well, gentlemen,” said Goody, addressing the pair, 
“Only a strange reluctance to shed human blood moves 
me to spare your lives. Please don’t think that this 
kindness is natural with me. If you or any of the 
curs with whom you are banded ever annoy me again 
in any way, I’ll blot you out like a drop of ink.” His 
tone suddenly became icy. “Get me?” 

There was no answer. “I assume that you do.” He 
looked them over curiously. “You’re a poor pair of 
apes,” he told them. “Better stick to your job of 
scaring half-witted niggers. That’s all you’re good 
for.” 

Isabelle touched his arm. “I don’t think these 
gentlemen want to detain us any longer,” she said 
to him. “I’ll turn the car around and we’ll go back.” 

For a moment he flirted with the idea of driving on 
to the Twenty-Mile House, but he knew that all the 
255 


SOUND AND FURY 

roads leading back to the city would be watched, and 
he had no right to ask her to take such risks. “Very 
well,” he told her. “It’s pretty narrow; don't run the 
car into the ditch.” 

As they drove off, nameless obscenities were shouted 
at them. 

The Harris home was dark when they reached it; 
the servants had retired to the third floor and Dr. 
Harris had not yet returned. 

“You must be starving,” Isabelle said to him. “I 
won't bother anyone; I'll just see what there is in the 
ice box.” 

“Don’t trouble,” he told her. “A ham or a turkey 
—something of the sort will be enough.” 

As he helped her take off her coat, she noticed that 
his hand was bloody. She started. 

“It’s nothing at all,” he told her. “Just the skin 
scraped on the knuckles. My hands haven't been put 
to this kind of use for a couple of years.” 

“But you must wash your hand and bathe it with 
peroxide.” 

“All right,” he assented. “But it isn't anything to 
worry about.” 

“I’ll go upstairs with you and show you where every¬ 
thing is.” 

They went up together, Isabelle preceding him. Her 
bathroom opened off her bedroom. She turned on the 
electric light and took a bottle from the medicine 
cabinet. 

“Here is the peroxide,” she said, putting it on the 
washstand. 


256 


SOUND AND FURY 
She looked at Goody’s hand again, then raised it to 
her lips and kissed the bloody knuckles. He put his 
arm around her waist and drew her close to him; then 
their lips met. It was an embrace that could have 
only one meaning. 

When the Rev. Mr. Harris returned at eleven o’clock 
that evening, he found his wife alone in the dining¬ 
room eating a belated supper of cold meat and bread. 


257 




XII 


HEN Goody got home that night, he awoke 



Sam, the Negro man-of-al 1-work, and had 


" * him get together some kind of supper. Fail¬ 
ing to find the key to the closet where his supply of 
liquor was kept, he kicked the door open, took out a 
bottle of bourbon, and sat down to make his meal. It 
had been a most unexpected evening, and there was not 
one moment of it that he would recall. He felt no re¬ 
grets whatsoever, and if he had any compunction at all 
it was because of his friend the clergyman, not Con. 
He had not quite decided what to do in the case of the 
former. His impulse was to tell him exactly what had 
happened, but he did not yet know what were to be the 
relations between him and Isabelle. Perhaps she re¬ 
garded the happenings of that night as merely an episode 
that had been concluded; in that case it would hardly 
be fair to tattle to her husband. In any event, he could 
never go into their home again as a guest or meet Harris 
as a friend—certainly not until the matter had been 
cleared up. 

Despite the wild thrill, the blind exhilaration of the 
evening, he could not find it in his heart to worry 
whether or not he ever saw Isabelle again. It was good 
to know that such a woman existed; it would be satisfy¬ 
ing to possess her openly, but in any event he must 


258 


SOUND AND FURY 
possess himself. As for that evening, it stood by it¬ 
self. Once before, many years ago, the wine of life 
had been offered to him and he had refused it. Only a 
fool refused such a thing the second time. Isabelle was 
the only woman of his own class, the only woman he 
respected, whom he had ever deeply and passionately 
and fully possessed. But if she chose to consider it 
merely an episode—well and good. However much he 
might desire her, it was not she whom he most wanted— 
it was himself. 

How had he lost himself? He remembered Tom’s 
phrase. What had become of his Goody-ness? Where 
had it been all these years? Now he was himself again, 
making his own decisions, cutting his own path, play¬ 
ing his own game. What the devil had he been doing? 
What had he been thinking about? 

It was not merely Con. There had always been 
Con. It was Con and all she represented, all the 
things he lived by, the printing-plant where he made 
his money, the bonds which he owned, the business men 
whom he knew, his friends and Con’s friends, all the 
warp and woof of his life. It had been a process of 
attrition; irregularity after irregularity had been rubbed 
off until he had been reduced to the same shiny smooth¬ 
ness as the rest. 

As a boy he had been an aristocrat—he knew that. 
He had had an essentially aristocratic and individual¬ 
istic point of view toward life. He had been a law unto 
himself, and everyone in his boy world had recognized 
that fact. How had he lost his aristocracy? He now 
saw that it was by associating with the only aristocracy 
259 


SOUND AND FURY 

that Harpersburg possessed. He had cheapened him¬ 
self irretrievably by using the common counters of the 
common game. Irretrievably? Well, perhaps not 
that. 

He must never lose himself again. What did these 
things mean to him anyway? As a boy he had never 
bothered about duty. Why should he now? To whom 
did he owe it? The only duty that he could possibly 
feel toward Con henceforth was to provide for her de¬ 
cently. That was easy enough to do. He hated the 
plant; he would sell it, give her the money, and let 
bygones be bygones. She could divorce him if she 
wanted to, but he knew very well she would not. 

As for the children—that would hurt. They were 
winsome little devils. But he could do nothing for 
them while Con was about them, and she would never 
give them up, never part with the least fraction of her 
claim upon them. Besides, if he could not make any¬ 
thing of his own life, how could he expect them to do 
anything with theirs? The first thing to do was to 
possess himself, to break away from everything he had 
been. 

What did he owe to anyone else? Harpersburg 
would think he had gone crazy. That was all right, 
too. Perhaps he had, but at least he would live where 
Harpersburg would be only a pin-point on a map to him. 
He did not know where he would go. Perhaps to 
Europe. After the war he had been offered a major¬ 
ity in the flea-bitten Polish army. There was plenty 
of fighting in Europe now—there was always a job 
for a fighting man one place or another. 


260 


SOUND AND FURY 

That would mean leaving his country behind, perhaps 
renouncing his citizenship. What did that matter? 
The only use his country had ever found for him had 
been killing men. The only difference would be that 
it would be under a different flag with a different set 
of slogans—all lies, and all cunning, calculated lies. 
That hadn't fooled him in the war and he would regard 
his new employers with equal sophistication. If Isa¬ 
belle wanted to come with him—fine! If not—“he 
travels the swiftest who travels alone." 

Leaving all romantic nonsense aside, what did his 
country mean to him? The Ku Klux gentlemen who 
had assaulted him that night—weren't they the most 
typical product of America and 100 per cent Ameri¬ 
canism ? Weren't they the same breed he had encoun¬ 
tered in college? They merely went one step further 
than the prohibitionists; the latter, who controlled 
the country, told a man what he could drink, and the 
Ku Klux regulated whom he could take to a roadhouse. 
They were against niggers and Catholics and Jews 
and the foreign-born—so were most of the 100 per cent 
Americans, though they didn't say so. It was all part 
of the same meddling, prying, nosey game. The latest 
thing was to regulate immigration to keep out Italians 
and Greeks and Russian Jews. The Ku Klux and the 
American Legion and the rest of the gang were for 
it. Just let them try it, and in five years they'd be 
begging the Dagoes to come over and do our work. 
Americans wouldn't work any longer—not do the hard 
work of the country, digging ditches and sweating in 
coal-mines and steel-mills and such things. That's 
261 


SOUND AND FURY 

why the foreigners were here. And as fast as the 
foreigners got educated, they wouldn’t work, so fresh 
foreigners had to be brought in. That was American¬ 
ism. The rest of it was just talk. Americans were 
people living on other people’s work. Even the big 
farm crops of the country—niggers had to pick the 
cotton and the I. W. W. had to harvest the wheat while 
the hated Huns grew the market produce. You could 
bull about 100 per cent Americanism all you pleased, 
but if there were only Ku Kluxers and 100 per cent 
Americans here, we’d all starve. 

As far as he cared, they could starve and be damned. 
All the worrying he did in the future would be about 
Goody Guthrie. After he was sure he was himself and 
free again, it would be time enough to bother about 
other things. 

It was three o’clock when he undressed and went to 
bed. Only then did he think of his personal relations 
with the Ku Klux Klan. He certainly had come out 
on the long side of the ledger. The Ku Kluxers might 
think that too and decide to even things up. He hoped 
they would try. But it would be a good idea to be 
ready for them, so he hunted up his old army automatic, 
loaded it, and put it on the bureau. On second thought 
he loaded a Colt revolver that had belonged to his 
father, and put it beside the other weapon. 

He awoke with a start and jumped to his feet so 
quickly that for a moment he felt dizzy. The door¬ 
bell was ringing violently, and he heard a hubbub of 
voices on the porch below. He looked out the win- 

262 


SOUND AND FURY 
dow. The street lamp had been extinguished, but in 
the starlight he could make out men, twenty or thirty 
of them, dressed in black hoods and robes. His watch 
showed it was four o'clock. The Klan had acted with 
American promptness. 

For a moment he considered telephoning for the 
police. But he did not reach for the receiver. They 
had probably cut the wire. Besides, it would be an 
inglorious end to a glorious adventure. He fairly 
leaped into his clothes. As he dressed, Sam entered 
the room, half dressed, his teeth chattering with fear. 

“Mr. Guthrie, it’s the Ku Klux. Dey's 'bout a hun¬ 
dred of 'em all 'bout the house." 

“Never mind, Sam. They’ve come for me, not for 
you. Go back to your room and stay there." 

Dazed by this information, Sam withdrew, muttering 
that he didn't want any truck with the Klan. 

The ringing continued. Goody, whose bible as a boy 
had been Huck Finn, remembered how Colonel What's- 
his-name had frightened away the mob that had come 
to lynch him. But he needed no literary precedent to 
give him courage. He hardly cared what happened 
now. If it had been the night before, he would have 
wanted to live, might have been willing to send for the 
police or make terms with the Klan. Now it did not 
matter very much. He had a strange sense of fulfil¬ 
ment. Poland, the Ukraine, Morocco—these were a 
long way off. Perhaps this other journey might be 
shorter and easier in the end. There need be no ex¬ 
planations, expostulations, recriminations, no bother 
about money and the nuisance of selling the plant. 

263 


SOUND AND FURY 

He climbed out on the unrailed roof of the porch. 
The ringing stopped. From all parts of the grounds 
black-hooded men gathered below him. 

“Now, Mr. Guthrie,” someone said, “you’ll oblige us 
by coming down here quietly or we’ll have to come up 
there and get you.” 

Goody singled out the speaker as well as he could in 
the mass beneath and addressed him. From his voice, 
the other seemed more than sixty years old. 

“Old fool,” Goody said to him, taking out his two 
weapons, “I let some of you curs live to-night because 
I felt good-hearted. I don’t feel good-hearted now, and 
if you ever want to see the sun rise again, you’d better 
go about your business.” 

“Mr. Guthrie,” replied the other evenly, without 
raising his voice, “these are serious men and their busi¬ 
ness is right here. You are going to have ample op¬ 
portunity to make any explanation of your own that 
you want and to give any testimony that you please. 
But first you must come with us and answer to the 
charges against you. And let me warn you against 
using those pistols.” 

“Well, you are an impudent son of a bitch, aren’t 
you!” Goody exploded. “Now, I’ve had enough of this 
monkey business. If there are any charges against me, 
there are law courts to hear them. You talk like a 
man who once had some sense. If you’ve got any left, 
show it by getting to hell out of here and taking these 
scoundrels with you.” 

“Mr. Guthrie, bluff don’t work here. You’ve got to 
come with us or we’ll come up and get you.” 


264 


SOUND AND FURY 

There was a chilly determination in the speaker's 
words which told Goody the man meant what he said. 
Well, what of it? It was better to go out with a bang— 
for go out he surely would if it came to a fight—rather 
than to creep out like a beaten dog. 

"You've made a bluff yourself," he told the old man. 
"You said you would come up and get me. Let’s see 
you do it. The first dozen men who try it will go 
straight to hell." 

The other turned from Goody. "Break in the door," 
he said to some of his lieutenants. 

In a few moments Goody heard from within the porch 
the dull thud of a heavy object being rammed methodi¬ 
cally against the door—probably a log they had brought 
with them. And they had wrapped one of the porch 
rugs around the end of it to deaden the sound. Sud¬ 
denly he laug.Ved, realizing that if the Klan killed him 
now, its members would be blamed for breaking into the 
liquor closet that he himself had kicked open earlier in 
the night. 

The next moment he was serious again. Suppose he 
had died in the war? That was a bigger struggle, but 
would it have been a more satisfactory death? He 
knew more now; he had experienced more. What bet¬ 
ter place to die than here, on his own porch, on the 
scene of his defeat and on the night of his resurgence? 
He was not superstitious, but there seemed something 
appropriate about it. He had just begun to live, and 
now he was going to die. Things happened like that. 
It was the end of a long hunt. He would not dignify 
his pursuers by thinking of them as hounds, but a man 
265 


SOUND AND FURY 

could not choose his murderers. He felt very calm. 
After all, he would have had to hurt Con very much, 
and to-night he felt he did not want to hurt anyone. 
Of course, he would kill a couple of these rascals, but 
that was only part of the game. 

The door could not last much longer. He could tell 
from the sound that the hinges were giving way. He 
reached inside the window and switched on a light that 
illuminated the top of the stairway and that would 
reveal the Klansmen to him as they gained the second 
floor. 

Now the door swung open. But there was no rush 
inside. The men were evidently disciplined. 

“Here is your last chance, Mr. Guthrie,” said the old 
man. “You can still come with us quietly. If not, 
we’ll come up and get you. Remember we have you 
covered and if you make a move to use a gun you’re 
a dead man.” 

Goody flung himself flat on the roof of the porch 
where he could not be seen. “Come ahead,” he called 
out. 

“Go up and get him, boys,” said the old man. 

They came, a dozen pairs of heavy feet tramping up 
the stairs. Goody took careful aim. One! Right in 
the belly-button. Two! Three! What a headache 
that scoundrel must have had. Four! This was too 
easy. 

No more came. They were on the stairs, gathering 
courage for another rush. He reloaded his automatic. 

Another head showed itself—he fired quickly and 
missed. Mustn’t waste ammunition like that. The 

266 


SOUND AND FURY 
sound of the shots would bring cops, and in spite of 
their Klan chief they’d have to stop this. Still, it was a 
pretty lonely suburb, and it would take a good while 
for the alarm to get to head-quarters. Perhaps they’d 
been tipped off not to interfere. But wouldn’t it be 
a good joke if he got away with it after all? He’d 
gotten away with everything else before this—even his 
marriage. He had now faced that and downed it too. 

Another head. Another shot—a good one, he 
thought. He was watching carefully now—also keep¬ 
ing one eye on the edge of the roof in case anyone tried 
to crawl up from below. But he overlooked a beech 
about fifteen yards from the porch. The tall, lean fel¬ 
low whom he had encountered earlier in the evening had 
climbed into the branches and a friend had handed 
him a Winchester. The young fellow now took care¬ 
ful aim. He drilled a bullet through Goody’s chest. 
Goody staggered to his feet, choking with blood. He 
tried to call out but failed. Then, as he tottered over, 
a last defiant gesture—his thumb to his nose. Fat¬ 
heads and bastards. . . . Darkness. 


267 



*N 










Some recent American novels 


BALISAND by Joseph Hergesheimer 

author of THE THREE BLACK PENNYS, JAVA HEAD, etc. 

This is Mr. Hergesheimer’s first novel in some years; it 
will not disappoint his many thousands of admirers. The 
Virginia of Washington and Jefferson, the century-old 
st ru ggl e between politics and patriotism live again in the 
life, loves and death of Richard Bale of Balisand. $3.50 

THE TATTOOED COUNTESS by Carl Van 
Vechten 

author of PETER WHIFFLE and THE BLIND BOW-BOY. 

With The Tattooed Countess Van Vechten takes on a new 
importance as a novelist, for while this book is as 
amusing as anything that has come from his pen it is also 
a serious thoroughly original picture of American provin¬ 
cial life a generation ago. It deserves the attention of 
all who care for the American novel at its best. $2.50 

SOUND AND FURY by James Henle 

A first novel by a young American and a work of real 
distinction. The protagonist, a remarkably vivid char¬ 
acter, is an instinctive individualist, the sort of man who 
must be a law unto himself. The inevitable conflict be¬ 
tween such a man and the American mob spirit that will 
tolerate only conformity makes a novel of unusual 
significance. $2.50 

THE ETERNAL HUNTRESS by Rayner Seelig 

Woman, the eternal huntress, in her search for the father 
of those children which shall be her gift to posterity is 
the theme of this striking first novel by a young American. 
It would be difficult to name another novel of recent 
years that treats of the sex problems of the younger gen¬ 
eration as frankly and withal as cleanly and vividly. 

$2.00 

THE FIRE IN THE FLINT by Walter F. 
White 

A first novel of unusual dramatic power dealing with the 







Georgia Negro. A negro himself the author knows only 
too well the countless barriers and humiliations heaped 
upon his race, the inescapable conflict of white against 
black. The incidents form an exciting narrative, dramatic 
and very human. $2.50 

WINGS by Ethel M. Kelley 

Does genius, brilliancy confer upon a man the right to use 
the lives of lesser people in the making of his success? 
WINGS is the “inside story” of the career of a brilliant 
editor, of the women from whose love he built his ladder 
to eminence. Miss Kelley gives us a remarkably vivid 
picture of New York’s intellectual set. 

THE TIDE by Mildred Cram 

A novel of our materialistic young people. Mildred Cram 
has a true perspective on fashionable New York. Lilah 
Peabody, the heroine, marries wealth and position in the 
firm belief that those two elements added make happiness 
and when they do not satisfy her, she takes her own way 
out. She is gallant, this Lilah, a charming schemer. A 
real person and an interesting one. $2.50 

THE PROWLER by Hugh IViley 

author of THE WILDCAT and LADY LUCK. 

Once again Hugh Wiley scored a laughing hit with his 
inimitable Wildcat Vitus Marsden and elusive Lady Luck. 
From Pullman Porter to motion picture actor, from 
familiar crap shooter to member of a Grand Secret Lodge, 
the Wildcat prowls spreading infectious laughter as he 
S° es - $2.00 

THREE PILGRIMS AND A TINKER by 

Alary Borden 

author of JANE—OUR STRANGER, etc. 

The success of Jane—Our Stranger in England and Amer¬ 
ica has won for Mary Borden a large and well deserved 
American audience. This new novel is a story of that 
part of England that lives to hunt, where women speak 
with a marvellous gentleness to their horses and brusquely 
to their children,—and men never speak at all. It is as 
nely original and artistic a piece of work as we have 
come to expect from her. 
















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